Investing.com - Wall Street opened flat on Thursday as trade tensions and lower-than-expected private sector employment data weighed on investor sentiment.
The S&P 500 lost 1 point, or 0.06%, to 2,886.82 as of 9:37 AM ET (13:37 GMT), while the Dow increased 19 points, or 0.08%, to 25,994.88 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dipped 7 points, or 0.10%, to 7,987.49.
Investors are waiting for news of U.S. tariffs on another $200 billion worth of Chinese goods that could go into effect as soon as the public comment period ends at midnight in Washington on Thursday. Meanwhile, trade negotiations to revamp the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada continued. America’s northern neighbor has said there is room to come up with a pact, but there are few signs that a deal is near.
The U.S. economy added less jobs than expected in August, according to nonfarm payroll data from ADP. The ADP figures come ahead of the Labor Department's more comprehensive payrolls report on Friday.
Chinese e-commerce site Jd.Com Inc Adr (NASDAQ:JD) was among the top gainers, surging 4.33%, while Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) rose 2.43% and Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) increased 2.13%. Payments processor Square (NYSE:SQ) gained 1.03% while Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) inched up 0.02%.
Elsewhere, Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) slumped 1.27%, while Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NASDAQ:AMD) declined 1.02%.
In Europe stocks were mixed. Germany’s DAX was flat while in France the CAC 40 increased 14 points, or 0.27%, and in London the FTSE 100 was down 14 points, or 0.20%. Meanwhile the pan-European Euro Stoxx 50 rose 2 points, or 0.09%, while Spain’s IBEX 35 lost 49 points, or 0.52%.
In commodities, gold futures rose 0.67% to $1,209.30 a troy ounce while crude oil futures fell 0.04% to $68.69 a barrel. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, dipped 0.05% to 95.02.