Investing.com – Wall Street was mixed on Thursday amid reports that the U.S. was going ahead with steel and aluminum tariffs.
The S&P 500 was down six points or 0.23% to 2,717.64 as of 9:48 AM ET (13:48 GMT) while the Dow composite decreased over 119 points or 0.49% to 24,547.93 and tech heavy NASDAQ Composite rose 10 points or 0.14% to 7,472.68.
Investors were waiting for comments from U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross amid reports that the U.S. was going ahead with metal tariffs against the European Union, Mexico and Canada. An exception to the tariffs that were announced in March is expected to end on Friday.
Meanwhile consumer spending in the U.S. rose more than expected while weekly jobless claims fell.
The Personal Consumption Expenditures inflation data rose to 0.6% in April. The Federal Reserve uses core PCE as a tool to help determine whether to raise or lower interest rates, with the aim of keeping inflation at a rate of 2% or below.
In Europe, political worries as Italian parties League and Five-Star attempted to form a government. Markets had been on edge over the past few days amid concerns about a wider impact of a political crisis in Europe.
General Motors (NYSE:GM) surged 11.41% on news that SoftBank was investing $2.25 billion in its self-driving vehicles unit, while Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) rose 0.60% and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) was up 0.36%.
Elsewhere semiconductor Micron Technology Inc (NASDAQ:MU) fell 4.35% while Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) dipped 0.64% and Deutsche Bank AG (DE:DBKGn) NA O.N. (NYSE:DB) (DE:DBKGn) slumped 5.66% after it’s U.S. division was put on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s “problem banks” list.
In Europe stocks were mixed. Germany’s DAX fell 92 points or 0.73% while in France the CAC 40 decreased two points or 0.04% and in London, the FTSE 100 was up 14 points or 0.19%. Meanwhile the pan-European Euro Stoxx 50 lost four points or 0.13% while Spain’s IBEX 35 was down 27 points or 0.28%.
In commodities, gold futures inched down 0.05% to $1,300.90 troy ounce while crude oil futures decreased 1.48% to $67.20 a barrel. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, fell 0.03% to 94.03.
