US markets end mostly higher on Tuesday

26 Aug 2020 Evaluate

The US markets ended mostly higher on Tuesday pushing the S&P 500 and Nasdaq indexes to another round of record highs, as investors took some comfort from progress on US-China trade talks. However, the drop by the Dow Jones came as Exxon Mobil, Raytheon and Pfizer moved notably lower following news they are being removed from the blue chip index. The three stocks will be replaced by Salesforce.com, Honeywell, and Amgen, which posted strong gains on the day. The changes to the Dow components come as Apple's upcoming 4-for-1 stock split will reduce the index’s weight in the information technology sector. Meanwhile, traders were also looking ahead to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's speech to the Jackson Hole symposium on Thursday.

On the economic data front, reflecting a significant deterioration in consumers' assessment of current conditions, the Conference Board released a report showing US consumer confidence unexpectedly declined for the second straight month in August. The Conference Board said its consumer confidence index slumped to 84.8 in August after tumbling to a downwardly revised 91.7 in July. The continued decrease came as a surprise to participants, who had expected the index to inch up to 93.0 from the 92.6 originally reported for the previous month. Besides, New home sales in the U.S. saw another substantial increase in the month of July, according to a report released by the Commerce Department. The report said new home sales spiked by 13.9 percent to an annual rate of 901,000 in July after soaring by 15.1 percent to a rate of 791,000 in June. Street had expected new home sales to climb by 1.2 percent to a rate of 785,000 from the 776,000 originally reported for the previous month.

Nasdaq gained 86.75 points or 0.76 percent 11,466.47 and S&P 500 was up by 12.34 points or 0.36 percent to 3,443.62, while Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 60.02 points or 0.21 percent to 28,248.44.

© 2026 The Alchemists Ark Pvt. Ltd. All rights reserved. MoneyWorks4Me ® is a registered trademark of The Alchemists Ark Pvt. Ltd.

×