By Chris Prentice and Alun John
NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) -Wall Street indexes gained on Wednesday on largely upbeat corporate earnings, and U.S. yields also rose, while European shares closed flat and broke a two-day winning streak.
U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order imposing an additional 25% tariff on goods from India, saying the country has imported Russian oil.
Oil prices seesawed and finished down, as Trump’s remarks about progress in talks with Moscow created uncertainty on whether the U.S. would impose new sanctions on Russia.[O/R]
MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe rose 0.65% to 933.23.
On Wall Street, the Nasdaq Composite led gains, rising 1.21% to 21,169.42 as Apple shares climbed after news of its plans to announce a domestic manufacturing pledge.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.18% to 44,193.12 and the S&P 500 rose 0.73% to 6,345.06.
“Earnings are seeing a mixed reaction. Particularly for a few of the AI names, expectations were just extremely high, but by and large, the earnings in aggregate have been good enough to keep a floor under the market,” said Ross Mayfield, investment strategy analyst at Baird.
Europe’s broad STOXX 600 index closed 0.06% lower, dragged down by healthcare stocks after Trump announced a tariff plan for the pharmaceutical sector.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan closed lower by 0.08% to 654.33, while Japan’s Nikkei rose 0.60% to 40,794.86.
The health of the U.S. economy is a major focus for markets, and Wall Street closed lower on Tuesday after data showed services sector activity unexpectedly flatlined in July.
That reinforced the message from Friday’s soft jobs data, which caused markets to significantly increase bets on the Federal Reserve cutting rates in September.
“There’s this tug-of-war going on between the more concrete signs that we have seen that the U.S. economy is slowing and the fact that rate cuts are coming, which removes some of the pressure on valuations,” said Samy Chaar, chief economist at Lombard Odier.
Traders have been focused on tariff impacts.
“The market is more focused on the fact that we’re not getting maximalist tariffs, but I wonder if it isn’t focusing enough on the fact that we are still getting something moderate, and more could be coming, pharmaceuticals for example,” Chaar said.
Trump on Tuesday said he would announce tariffs on semiconductors and chips in the next week or so, while the U.S. would initially impose a “small tariff” on pharmaceutical imports before increasing it substantially in a year or two.
