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| - Wall Street stocks joined other global equity markets on Tuesday in declining on news of a new virus outbreak in China, pulling back from records. Leading US indices were down modestly following reports of the illness, which has produced a death toll of six in almost 300 known cases. Earnings takes center stage during the holiday-shortened week, with reports from Netflix, American Airlines and Procter & Gamble, among others. US markets were closed Monday because of the Martin Luther King holiday. About 25 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.1 percent at 29,312.37. The broad-based S&P 500 dropped 0.2 percent to 3,322.11, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index shed 0.1 percent to 9,379.05. Major US indices finished last week at all-time highs following the signing of a partial US-China trade agreement. Other positive factors have included solid US economic data and accommodative monetary policy. On Monday, the International Monetary Fund cut the global growth estimate for 2020 to 3.3 percent, 0.1 percentage point lower than in the prior report released in October, noting an improvement in the US-China trade picture but pointing to weakness in India. jmb/dg
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