Investing.com - Wall Street was slightly lower after the morning bell on Monday, as trade tensions lingered.
The S&P 500 fell 2 points, or 0.10%, to 2,837.56 as of 9:38 AM ET (13:38 GMT), while the Dow decreased 79 points, or 0.31%, to 25,382.77 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite gained half a point, or 0.01%, to 7,812.60.
Trade tensions between the U.S. and China continued to flare up, with Chinese state media lashing out at U.S. President Donald Trump for his trade policies. Chinese media called Trump's trade "extortion" and that it would not work. On Friday, Beijing proposed tariffs on up to $60 billion of U.S. goods after the White House planned to propose tariffs of 25% instead of 10% on $200 billion of imported Chinese goods.
Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRKb) was among the top gainers, rising 2.47% after its quarterly operating profit jumped 67% in the last quarter. Meanwhile, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) gained 0.21%, while Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) was up 0.82%. SeaWorld Entertainment (NYSE:SEAS) surged 19.07% after its earnings came in higher than expected, while PepsiCo (NASDAQ:PEP) increased 0.95% after the beverage company announced that CEO Indra Nooyi is stepping down in October.
Elsewhere, Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) fell 1.21%, while Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) dipped 1.45% and Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) was up slightly.
In Europe, stocks were down. Germany’s DAX fell 69 points, or 0.55%, while in France the CAC 40 decreased 21 points, or 0.39%, and in London, the FTSE 100 was down 15 points, or 0.21%. Meanwhile the pan-European Euro Stoxx 50 lost 12 points, or 0.37%, while Spain’s IBEX 35 inched down 33 points, or 0.35%.
In commodities, gold futures fell 0.46% to $1,217.60 a troy ounce, while crude oil futures increased 1.07% to $69.22 a barrel. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, rallied 0.25% to 95.27.