Investing.com - Wall Street started flat on Wednesday, as trade war jitters held back investor optimism.
The S&P 500 was flat at 2,887.91 as of 9:41 AM ET (13:41 GMT), while the Dow increased 31 points, or 0.12%, to 26,002.39 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite lost 24 points, or 0.31%, to 7,947.56.
Investors are closely watching trade developments after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened on Friday to impose tariffs on almost all Chinese imports, or about $467 billion in goods. China is planning to ask the WTO for permission to impose sanctions on the U.S. regarding a dumping duties case at a meeting next week.
The market also grappled with an unexpected decrease in wholesale prices. The Labor Department said its producer price index decreased 0.1% last month. In the 12 months through August, the PPI rose 2.8%. Economists had forecast the PPI rising 0.2% last month and increasing 3.2% from a year ago.
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) was in focus on Wednesday ahead of an expected release of its latest smartphone model. Shares of the tech giant fell 0.80%, giving back some of the previous session's gains.
Meanwhile, Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) rose 0.27%, Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) gained 1.19% and Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) jumped 1.21%.
Elsewhere, Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) lost 2.4%, while Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) was down 1.08% and semiconductor company Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) dipped 4.20% after Goldman Sach cuts its rating on the stock.
In Europe stocks were mostly up. Germany’s DAX rose 30 points, or 0.25%, while in France the CAC 40 increased 39 points, or 0.75%, and in London the FTSE 100 was up 29 points, or 0.40%. Meanwhile, the pan-European Euro Stoxx 50 gained 8 points, or 0.25%, while Spain’s IBEX 35 fell 2 points, or 0.02%.
In commodities, gold futures fell 0.15% to $1,200.40 a troy ounce, while crude oil futures increased 1.40% to $70.22 a barrel. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, gained 0.004% to 95.09.