By Sinead Carew
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks edged lower in volatile trading on Thursday, as investors favoured defensive sectors while financials and consumer discretionary stocks created the biggest drag.
Wall Street oscillated between positive and negative territory as it struggled to sustain an opening rally spurred by hopes for progress in U.S.-China trade negotiations. A Chinese commerce ministry spokesman had said Washington and Beijing were in close contact over trade.
"Good (trade) news should make the market trade higher. There is just some overhang here," said Mark Esposito, president of Esposito Securities in Dallas, citing worries about earnings and the Federal Reserve.
Trading had been choppy all week with major stock indexes failing to hold their direction for the full session.
"The markets are hanging on every morsel of trade news," said Paul Nolte, portfolio manager at Kingsview Asset Management in Chicago. "In the short run because there's not a consistent policy we get the flip-flopping back and forth."
At 2:49PM ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average <.DJI> fell 22.11 points, or 0.09 percent, to 24,505.16, the S&P 500 <.SPX> lost 9.83 points, or 0.37 percent, to 2,641.24 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> dropped 54.64 points, or 0.77 percent, to 7,043.67.
Investors have also been swivelling on news updates on issues ranging from a potential U.S. government shutdown and interest rates to uncertainty around Brexit and concerns over slowing global growth.
Also fuelling investor fears, a Reuters poll showed strategists expect the U.S. Treasury yield curve to invert next year, possibly within the next six months, much earlier than forecast just three months ago, with a recession to follow as soon as a year after that.
The S&P's financial sector <.SPSY> was down 0.8 percent as bank stocks fell more than 1 percent.
The defensive utilities <.SPLRCU>, real estate <.SPLRCR> and consumer staples <.SPLRCS> sectors were the only three out the 11 major S&P sectors showing gains.
Retail stocks dropped, with Under Armour
Procter & Gamble Co
General Electric Co
Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 2.03-to-1 ratio. On Nasdaq, a 3.07-to-1 ratio favoured decliners.
The S&P 500 posted 10 new 52-week highs and 45 new lows. The Nasdaq Composite recorded 14 new highs and 289 new lows.
(Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak in New York, Medha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Richard Chang)
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)