Stocks were mixed near midday on Tuesday as the tech-heavy Nasdaq traded on either side of the flat line while the S&P 500 and Dow nursed modest losses.
Near 11:40 a.m. ET, the Nasdaq was up 0.2%, while the S&P 500 was down 0.1% and the Dow was off 0.5%.
Stocks opened Tuesday’s session lower with traders citing rising U.S.-China tensions amid House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan as the source of market stress. Stocks around the globe were lower overnight on Tuesday ahead of this trip, with Europe’s major indexes red across the board as Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 2.3% and stocks in Shanghai lost over 2.2%. Japan’s Nikkei fell 1.4% overnight.
Economic data out Tuesday on the labor market showed a slowdown in the number of jobs open as of June, with the latest Job Opening and Labor Turnover survey showing 10.7 million jobs were available at the start of the summer. This marked the fewest number of jobs open since September 2021.
Federal Reserve officials have in recent months talked about slowing the pace of job openings as a way to cool demand in the labor market and the broader economy without causing a surge in unemployment.
On the earnings front, Uber (UBER) shares were higher in early trading after the company reported a better-than-expected quarter across the board. Shares gained as much as 16% about two hours into the trading session.
The company reported revenue of $8.1 billion on gross bookings of $29.1 billion. Revenue had been expected to come in at $7.4 billion. Adjusted EBITDA also beat estimates, totaling $364 million against expectations for $266 million. Uber also said it recorded $382 million in free cash flow during the second quarter.
Also on the earnings side, shares of Caterpillar (CAT) were off more than 3% after the industrial giant reported quarterly revenue that came in slightly light of Wall Street estimates.
The price of crude oil was also lower early Tuesday, down over 1% with WTI crude futures trading below $93 a barrel. The price of gas in the U.S. has now fallen 17% since its mid-June peak to below $4.17 a gallon.
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