Wall Street still stuck as oil recovers from sharp losses

After recent fluctuations, Wall Street appears to be mostly neutral. The Standard & Poor’s 500 is expected to have a quiet, mixed day for the fourth straight day, with early trading remaining unchanged.


Nearly flat on the Nasdaq composite, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 11 points, or less than 0.1%. Following the lead US company, Walt Disney Co., in reporting higher-than-expected profits for the most recent quarter, the company was in strong shape.

Wall Street’s profit estimate for the manufacturer of luxury shoes and handbags was beaten by Tapestry, which saw a 5.1% increase, making it one of the largest gains in the S&P 500. Becton Dickinson fell 9.7% after the medical equipment manufacturer revealed summer earnings that exceeded Wall Street’s projections but fiscal year earnings that were lower than anticipated by some analysts.

Another heavyweight on the market, Lyft fell 3.4% even though its summer performance exceeded analysts’ expectations. According to FactSet, companies in the S&P 500 seem to be on track to produce their first annual growth in earnings per share. Most of these companies have been exceeding Wall Street’s expectations for summertime profits.

But the attention of financial markets has stayed focused on the movement of bond yields. The 10-year Treasury yield increased slightly from 4.50% to 4.53% late on Wednesday, following reports that indicated the job market in the United States is still remarkably strong. The S&P 500 fell more than 10% from its year-end peak due to a sharp increase in the 10-year Treasury yield that started earlier in the summer.
Financial markets have spent most of this week trying to process all of the sudden changes. In the oil market, the price of crude recovered some of the significant losses it had earlier in the week. The international benchmark, Brent crude, increased 1.4% to $80.66 while U.S. crude added 1.4% to $76.36 per barrel. Indexes on overseas stock markets were generally higher in Europe and Asia.