Throughout the week, Wall Street was doing great until things turned south as the tension between the U.S. and Iran continued to rise. However, due to the postponement of U.S. Vice President Mike Pence’s speech, which was supposed to be a continuation of the complaints he mentioned last October, investors were hoping to see better developments in stocks soon.
The U.S. and China Relations
The White House explained that they decided to delay the speech to avoid any more turmoil between both countries. The official said that the presidents from both countries were able to have a positive conversation together, and they agreed that it would be better to give the speech after the G20 Summit.
This coming week, Japan is hosting the G20 Summit, and investors are looking forward to the expected trade talks between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. If the meeting goes smoothly, Wall Street will be able to benefit from it tremendously.
The U.S. Relations’ Effect on Stocks
After downing the U.S. drone by Iran last week, President Trump was able to stop a military strike on the country, but due to the possibility of an attack, crude oil prices have risen helping the energy sector.
As for this week, although the S&P 500 reached its record high of 2,964.15, there was a setback due to the strained relations between the U.S. and Iran, thus creating doubts for the investors.
Both the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.13% to 2,950.46 and 26,719.13 points, respectively. The Nasdaq Composite also dipped 0.24% to 8,031.71.
Tech-heavy Nasdaq also took a hit after the news of Bill Ready, Paypal’s chief operating officer, deciding to step down broke out. Its stock dropped about 2.2%.
Overall, throughout the week, the S&P 500 rose 2.20%, the Dow increased 2.41%, and the Nasdaq grew 3.02%.
CarMax Inc. had one of the enormous increases in its stock rising to 3.2%. This value was its record high as the company was able to surpass analysts’ prior expectations.
On the other hand, Carnival Corporation was one of the biggest drops for the week. They dropped for a second day, decreasing their points about 4.4%. This British-American cruise operator announced its profit cut for 2019, which led to brokers reducing its share price target.
Both NYSE and Nasdaq had decliners outnumber advancers with a 1.63-to-1 ratio.
After May having the worst monthly performance for 2019, this is the third straight week that Wall Street was able to overall gain instead of losing.
