Investing.com – Wall Street had a muted opening on Wednesday, as a lack of detail on trade developments between the U.S. and China kept investors on edge, while fresh data pointed to a slowdown in hiring in February.
The energy in the market has ebbed since stocks started the week on a high-note amid reports that the U.S. and China are close to signing a trade deal. The lack of detail, and uncomfortable reminders of previous false dawns, have started to unnerve some.
"We started the year with a lot of fears and uncertainty and some of that has abated, but now there's not a lot of catalysts to push the markets one way or the other," said Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James in St. Petersburg, Florida.
"It's going to be more of this back and forth for a while until the trade picture gets clearer."
Meanwhile, U.S. private employers added 183,000 jobs in February, a slowdown from January and below economists' expectations. The numbers are a precursor to the Labor Department’s more comprehensive payrolls report on Friday. On the upside, January's hiring figure was revised sharply higher to 300,000 from an initial estimate of 213,000.
The S&P 500 fell 2 points or 0.11% as of 9:40 AM ET (14:40 GMT), while the Dow gained 17 points, or 0.07%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite decreased 5 points, or 0.07%.
Among the prominent fallers, General Electric (NYSE:GE) slumped 5.2% as it extending Tuesdays loses after the company’s chief executive officer Larry Culp warned that “industrial free cash flow will be negative” in 2019.
insurer Willis Towers Watson (NASDAQ:WLTW) slumped 6.3% after Aon (NYSE:AON)withdrew its bid for the rival insurance broker, citing regulatory concerns in Ireland. Aon gained 5.5%.
Semiconductor company Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NASDAQ:AMD) fell 1.2%, while Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) slipped 0.6% and Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) lost 0.5%.
Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) was among the top gainers, rising 1.27%, while Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) gained 0.14% and Boeing (NYSE:BA) inched up 0.17%.
In commodities, gold futures rose 0.09% to $1,285.90 a troy ounce while crude oil was down 0.97% to $56.01 a barrel. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, fell 0.01% to 96.78.
-Reuters contributed to this report.