US open: Wall Street's focus switches to bank earnings
Wall Street saw some mixed-to-positive trading at the bell on Friday as market participants turned their attention to bank earnings.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.16% to 24,964.09 and the Nasdaq was ahead 0.08% to 7,830.41. The S&P 500 was flat at 2,798.39.
SpreadEx analyst Connor Campbell said the Dow went beyond 24,950 for the first time since mid-June as the index "continued its trade war-ignoring recovery."
Although trade relations between the US and China remained on investors' minds, the focus shifted on Friday to upcoming earnings from banking giants JPMorgan, Citigroup and Wells Fargo.
Oanda analyst Craig Erlam said that with the earnings season now getting underway, investors would be "looking for reasons to be more optimistic having spent months reading about the risks that a trade war poses to the economy".
"JP Morgan, Citigroup and Wells Fargo will kick things off today and over the coming weeks, investors will be paying close attention not just to the results but also references to trade tariffs and the impact they are expected to have on future results, particularly those that have already been targeted in counter-measures taken or proposed against the US."
Across the pond, Donald Trump wasn't exactly getting a warm welcome in the UK as protesters launched a 20-foot tall 'Trump Baby' blimp above Parliament Square ahead of his meeting with the Queen.
Trump sparked a big drop in the pound after saying in an interview with The Sun that if the UK goes ahead with the soft Brexit strategy revealed on Thursday - which would stick to a common rulebook with Brussels on goods and agricultural produce - any future trade deal with the US would likely be off the cards.
"If they do a deal like that, we would be dealing with the European Union instead of dealing with the UK, so it will probably kill the deal," he said.
"We have enough difficulty with the European Union. We are cracking down right now on the European Union because they have not treated the United States fairly on trading."
"No, if they do that I would say that that would probably end a major trade relationship with the United States."
Trump later rowed back on the remarks in a bizarre press conference with May after their meeting, calling the Sun interview "fake news" for not quoting him praising the prime minister.
Bloomberg later reported the US President as saying that his relationship with Theresa May was "very, very strong" and that he will discuss trade with her.
On the markets, JPMorgan dipped 0.11% despite kicking off Wall Street earnings season with strong second-quarter results, while Citigroup shares slid 2.71% on a second-quarter revenue miss.
Wells Fargo dropped 3.32% after its second-quarter report card showed that its fake account scandal was still hurting its bottom line.
Aside from bank earnings, Johnson & Johnson was down 1.19% after it was ordered to pay $4.69bn in damages to 22 women who alleged that its talcum powder caused them to develop ovarian cancer.
Elsewhere, AT&T dropped 2.05% after the Department of Justice filed for an appeal of a ruling allowing the company to buy TimeWarner.
On the data front, the cost of import goods saw its biggest drop in roughly twelve months, despite worsening trade tensions between the Trump White House and other countries.
The import price index sank 0.4%, the biggest decline since February 2016.
Elsewhere, consumer sentiment in the US deteriorated in July amid trade war concerns, according to a preliminary reading from the University of Michigan.
The consumer sentiment index fell to 97.1 from 98.2 in June, below expectations for an unchanged reading but up from 93.4 in July 2017.
Meanwhile, the current economic conditions index printed at 113.9 in July from 116.5 the month before and 113.4 in the same month a year ago.
The index of consumer expectations ticked up to 86.4 in July from 86.3 in June and 80.5 in July last year.
Investors will also eye comments from Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic who was taking part in a town hall chat at Northern Chapter of the Virginia Society of Certified Public Accountants in Falls Church.