Oil Flirts with Break Below $30
NEW YORK: US and European shares pared earlier gains on Tuesday when depressed oil prices failed to sustain a rally.
Major US stock indexes initially rose in morning trading, building off of Monday’s late-session rallies after historically poor starts to 2016, but a Wall Street rally faltered by midday as crude prices approached the $30 per barrel mark.
The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index climbed 1.1 percent after four sessions of declines.
Volatile Chinese markets and the deepening slide of oil have shaken sentiment in equities to start 2016. China stocks closed higher on Tuesday as the central bank tried to stabilize the yuan.
Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott in Philadelphia, said stocks were “ripe for a bounce” but it was “too soon to tell whether this is something indicative of a more sustainable rally.”
“Market conditions clearly were oversold,” Luschini said.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 9.76 points, or 0.06 percent, at 16,388.81, the S&P 500 gained 1.2 points, or 0.06 percent, at 1,924.87 and the Nasdaq Composite added 20.87 points, or 0.45 percent, at 4,658.86.
Shares of Apple, which rose 1 percent after a broker upgrade, helped prop up the indexes.
In Europe, shares of retailers were higher after trading up after solid corporate updates.
MSCI’s broadest gauge of stocks globally rose 0.1 percent after eight straight down sessions.