Although not officially confirmed, news outlets reported on Mon that US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will visit Taiwan today (Tue). China foreign ministry has called the visit a “gross interference in China’s internal affairs”, and warned that it’s military would never “sit idly by”.
Wall Street did not seem to be affected much by rising geopolitical tensions. On Mon, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 46.73 pts or 0.14% to close at 32,798.40. The S&P 500 index fell 0.28%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite retreated 0.18%.
Megacap tech stocks finished mixed on Mon, as Apple (AAPL US, -0.62%), Microsoft (MSFT US, -0.97%) and Alphabet (GOOGL US, -1.26%) slipped. While NVidia (NVDA US, +1.53%), Amazon (AMZN US, +0.33%), and Meta Platforms (META US, +0.52%) rose.
Pinterest (PINS US, +2.62%) shares soared 21.51% in after-hours trade after Elliott Investment Management confirmed its stake as the company’s top stakeholder, saying it approved of the company’s leadership.
Bears returned to global oil markets on Mon. The front-month Brent and WTI futures closed down $9.98 at US$100.03/bbl and $4.73 at US$93.89/bbl respectively. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that the US boosted output by 200,000 bpd during the week ended 22 July against the previous week.
A subindex of the Institute for Supply Management’s (ISM) manufacturing gauge showed cooling US inflation. “Prices paid” fell from 78.5 to 60, the lowest level in two years and the largest drop since 2010. The ISM data helped long-term US Treasury yields to continue on their falling trend.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note notched down 7.55 basis points (bps) to 2.5732%, while the yield on the 2-year Treasuries fell 1.44 bps to 2.8701%. The ICE dollar index (DXY), which measures the strength of the greenback against a basket of currencies, fell 0.43% to 105.450.
The most actively traded US gold futures (Dec) contracts settled up $5.90, or 0.3%, at US$1,787.70/oz. September silver, which is the most actively traded silver futures, rose 16.5 cents, or 0.8%, to end at US$20.362/oz.
European equity markets finished lower on Mon. The UK FTSE lost 0.13%, France's CAC 40 fell 0.18%, while the German DAX retreated 0.03%.