US open: Markets take a breather ahead of Trump speech
Ahead of President Donald Trump's speech on tax, and possibly on fiscal spending plans, US stocks took a breather from previous record highs on Monday with the Dow on track to break its 12 day winning streak.
At 1530 GMT, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq were flat at 20,828.43, 2,368.13 and 5,846.40, respectively.
Meanwhile, West Texas Intermediate was up 0.38% to $54.20 per barrel and Brent crude rose 0.56% to $56.31.
In currency markets, the dollar was up 0.15% against the pound to 0.8036, was down 0.4% versus the euro at 0.9430 and was flat against the yen to 112.14.
DS Securities researcher Konstantinos Anthis said that Trump's appearance before Congress on Tuesday should shed more light on how bullish he is over his reforms schedule moving forward. He added that Treasury Secretary Mnuchin attempted to manage expectations last week.
This was echoed by Craig Erlam, senior markets analyst at Oanda: “Trump’s appearance before Congress will be watched very closely for some real insight into his plans for taxes and possibly fiscal stimulus which would help to sustain the rally for now. Given the lack of details so far though, I’m not getting my hopes up. In the absence of any details, Trump may instead hope to rely on the very tactics that have been so successful so far, vague yet substantial promises that keep people interested while leaving us all none-the-wiser.”
On the data front, US durable goods orders rose a little more than expected in January, almost entirely on the back of a surge in commercial aircraft orders.
Durable goods orders were up 1.8% from the previous month, when they dropped 0.8%. Economists had been expecting a 1.7% increase.
The jump was driven by a 70% rise in passenger plane orders and a 60% increase in orders for fighter jets and related military goods. Excluding transport, new orders fell 0.2%, missing expectations for a 0.5% jump.
Demand in a category that tracks business investment plans dropped 0.4%, marking its first fall since September.
Meanwhile, the pending hole sales index fell 2.8% in January to 106.4, analysts had forecast a 0.6% rise. The December reading was revised up to 109.5.
Whereas, pending home sales rose 2.7% year-on-year last month, from a 2% fall in December year-on-year.
In corporate news, La Jolla Pharmaceutical jumped 58.59% after it announced positive trial results for its hypertension treatment.
Sotheby’s surged 10.33% after the auction house swung to a fourth quarter profit beating forecasts.
Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway was up 0.47% after it reported a 15% jump in fourth-quarter profit.
On the down side, Tesla was down 4.74% after Goldman Sachs downgraded the driverless carmaker to ‘sell’.
Shutterstock tumbled 14.2% after the stock photograph company missed profit and revenue expectations and gave a gloomy outlook.
Numbers from Hertz Global will be posted after the close.