INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Wall Street indexes fell on Tuesday as investors worried about a lack of progress in United States -China trade talks and Treasury yields
rose after United States retail sales data indicated rising inflation.
The United States and China are still "very far apart" on resolving
trade frictions, United States Ambassador to China Terry Branstad said, as a second round of high-level talks were set to begin in
Washington.
Adding to the trade woes, Mexico's economy minister Ildefonso Guajardo said he does not expect to meet a deadline this
Thursday to reach a new North American Free Trade Agreement that could be presented to the United States Congress.
United States retail
sales increased a moderate 0.3 percent in April, compared with an upwardly revised 0.8 percent surge in March, as rising gasoline prices
weighed on discretionary spending, the Commerce Department said.
However, the rise in core retail sales, which excluded automobiles,
gasoline, building materials and food services, showed consumer spending appeared on track to accelerate after slowing sharply in the first
quarter.
Following the data, benchmark United States Treasury yield hit 3.037 percent, a key breakout level, before gaining further to
3.058 percent, their highest since July 2011.
"It's a combination of less good news from China trade situation, a bit of a seasonal miss
on Home Depot and tick up in the yield on 10-year that conspires to be the story and unraveled some of that positive feeling we had
yesterday," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B
Riley FBR in Boston.
"The (retail sales) data is impressive, the yield on the 10-year is reflective of that, and that we get further noise
on 3 percent and that becomes an issue."
The losses were broad based with all the 11 major SP sectors and all the 30 Dow components in the
red.
Home Depot Inc slipped 1.7 percent in premarket trading after the No.1 United States home improvement chain missed Wall Street
forecasts for sales at established stores as an unusually long winter hit demand for typical spring products.
Smaller rival Lowe's was
down 0.8 percent.
At 9:46 a.m
EDT the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 175.28 points, or 0.70 percent, at 24,724.13, the SP 500 was down 20.54 points, or 0.75
percent, at 2,709.59 and the Nasdaq Composite was down 72.66 points, or 0.98 percent, at 7,338.66.
Agilent Technologies dropped 9.1 percent
after posting a disappointing quarterly forecast late on Monday.
Ford dipped 0.8 percent after Piper Jaffray cut its rating to "neutral" on
the automaker's shares.
Declining issues outnumbered advancers for a 3.96-to-1 ratio on the NYSE
Declining issues outnumbered advancers for a 1.98-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The SP index recorded 1 new 52-week highs and 5 new lows, while
the Nasdaq recorded 21 new highs and 20 new lows.
