US markets settle higher amid US-China trade developments

24 Jul 2019 Evaluate

The US markets ended higher with gains of over half a percent on Tuesday on the heels of reports indicating US officials will soon travel to China for face-to-face trade talks. US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and a small team of senior US officials will travel to China. A private report said US officials will travel to China for discussions sometime between Friday and Thursday, August 1. Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin have spoken with their Chinese counterparts by phone, although this would be the first face-to-face meeting since talks broke down in May. Besides, a positive reaction to the latest earnings reports contributed to strength on markets, with shares of Coca-Coca surging up by 6.1%. The jump by Coca-Cola came after the beverage giant reported second quarter results that beat street estimates and raised its full-year revenue forecast. Conglomerate United Technologies (UTX) also posted a notable gain after reporting better than expected second quarter results and boosting its full-year outlook.

On the economic front, after reporting a notable increase in US existing home sales in the previous month, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) released a report showing existing home sales pulled back by much more than anticipated in the month of June. NAR said existing home sales tumbled by 1.7% to annual rate of 5.27 million in June after soaring by 2.9% to an upwardly revised rate of 5.36 million in May. Street had expected existing home sales to edge down by 0.2% to a rate of 5.33 million from the 5.34 million originally reported for the previous month. The report said the median existing home price for all housing types reached an all-time high of $285,700 in June, up 4.3% from $273,800 in the same month a year ago.

Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 177.29 points or 0.65 percent to 27349.19, Nasdaq gained 47.27 points or 0.58 percent to 8251.40 and S&P 500 was up by 20.44 points or 0.68 percent to 3005.47.

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