Today’s session got off to a rousing start jumping the Dow nearly 80 points before news got out that Trump had issued instructions to proceed with the tariffs against China, this despite the fact that Mnuchin was at the moment still knee deep in negotiations.  So everything came right back down again to settle at close a mere 8 points up and only saved by yet another report from an inside White House source that the timing of the tariffs remains unclear.  The takeaway was that a lot can happen over the weekend so let’s wait and see.  Other than that, the good news was that the insurance companies got a boost when analysts cut the estimates on how much damage Florence would cause.  Yesterday, the home improvement companies took a hit because the storm was downgraded.  Yes, some investors do bet on disaster (and I’m always happy when they lose.)  Today it was the other side of the coin with companies that profit from the other side.  Volume was in line with recent averages at 6.2 billion.

fri  SEPTEMBER 14, 2018 / 4:33 PM

Wall St ends near flat, but financials climb with yields

Caroline Valetkevitch

DJ:  26,154.67  +8.68        NAS:  8,010.04  -3.67          S&P:  2,904.98  +0.80       9/14

NEW YORK, Sept 14 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks ended little changed on Friday as financials rose with bond yields, while news that President Donald Trump instructed aides to proceed with tariffs on about $200 billion of Chinese products limited gains.  The S&P financial index was up 0.7 percent, leading percentage gains among sectors. Benchmark U.S. Treasury yields rose above 3 percent earlier in the day but were last off those levels.  At the same time, the rate-sensitive S&P utilities index fell 0.5 percent. 

A source familiar with the White House decision also said the timing for activating the additional tariffs was unclear. The move came despite Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s attempts to restart talks with Beijing.  “There are a lot of headlines that have come out, people have been pretty active all week, and it’s Friday afternoon. You don’t really want to add additional risk when you don’t know what news might hit over the weekend,” said Michael O’Rourke, chief market strategist at JonesTrading in Greenwich, Connecticut.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 8.68 points, or 0.03 percent, to 26,154.67, the S&P 500 gained 0.80 point, or 0.03 percent, to 2,904.98 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 3.67 points, or 0.05 percent, to 8,010.04.  For the week, the Dow was up 0.9 percent, the S&P 500 was up 1.2 percent and the Nasdaq rose 1.4 percent. 

Also weighing on utilities was NiSource, which tumbled 11.7 percent after fire investigators said they suspected a unit of the company, Columbia Gas, was linked to a series of gas explosions in Boston suburbs on Thursday.  Shares of insurer Travelers were up 0.9 percent as analysts cut loss estimates from Hurricane Florence as the storm weakened.  Walmart lost 0.6 percent after Goldman Sachs raised questions around the purchase of a majority stake in India’s Flipkart.  Adobe Systems rose 2.3 percent, a day after the company topped quarterly revenue and profit expectations.

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 1.04-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.12-to-1 ratio favored advancers.  The S&P 500 posted 51 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 118 new highs and 68 new lows.

About 6.2 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges. That compares with the 6.1 billion daily average for the past 20 trading days, according to Thomson Reuters data.