The New York Stock Exchange ended the week slightly higher, Friday after a hesitant session, the three US indices finished on new historic highs. US President Donald Trump has sowed some doubts in the minds, opposing a lifting of tariffs on Chinese products, which Beijing said Thursday to have negotiated under the so-called “Phase 1” agreement. However, Donald Trump continues to believe in the signing of an agreement, which he said will be signed on US soil.
At closing, the Dow Jones index ticked 0.02% to 27,681 points, while the broad S & P 500 index advanced 0.26% to 3,093 points and the Nasdaq Composite, rich in technology and biotechnology stocks, climbed 0.48% to 8.475 points. Over the week, the three indices gained respectively 1.2%, 0.9% and 1%.
On the securities side, Walt Disney jumped 3.76% after posting better-than-expected Q3 accounts just before the launch of its streaming video service. Gap, however, plunged 7.6% after the surprise departure of his boss and a significant profit warning.
After recent stock market indexes, investors have been skeptical after Donald Trump’s comments on trade negotiations. The US president has said he is opposed to a total elimination of additional tariffs imposed since March 2018 on hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese goods, contradicting claims of the Chinese government.
Asked about the gradual lifting of all additional tariffs announced by Beijing Thursday, Donald Trump said: “I will not do it.”
The US president, however, is in the framework of an agreement, which he said will be signed in the United States, possibly in Iowa, between himself and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. “We are studying several places,” said Donald Trump from the White House. “It could even be in Iowa,” a rural American state where Xi Jinping stayed in 1985 to study agriculture, he added.
For his part, Larry Kudlow, Donald Trump’s chief economic adviser, said from the White House that the negotiations have “made a lot of progress, but are not complete.” He said “we are beyond our situation last spring”. At the time, Donald Trump had interrupted negotiations that seemed likely to succeed, accusing the Chinese of being back on their word.
