The Dow jones Industrial Average managed to squeeze through the day to end the session in positive notes, but overall other benchmark indexes ended the session with a decline even though reports show that there is a better-than-expected retail sales data and tensions between the U.S. and North Korea subsides.
The Down Jones Industrial Average ended the session with an increase of 5.28 points which is a less than 0.1% in and was being traded at 21,998.99 as American Express Co. and Apple Inc. representing the companies with the biggest contribution to the index’s gain, while Home Depot and Nike as the largest declines.
The S&P 500 index was down by 1.23 point to finish the session at 2,464.61, as telecom and consumer-discretionary stocks representing the largest decliners, while consumer-staples and utilities stocks were the biggest gainers.
All three indexes were trading higher earlier in the session, but later gave back gains as the session continued.
In the report, Retail sales were up by 0.6% in July, which was above expectation that is 0.4% rise, retail sales are pushed higher by strong demands for new autos and Amazon’s Prime Day shopping specials, but generally, retail stocks suffered for most of the previous session.
Amazon.com shares ended the session with a decrease of less than 0.1% while traditional retailers closed with a steeper loss as shares of Target Corp. ended down by 2.6%. Nordstrom Inc. and Kohl’s Corp. both ended the session with a 1.5% decrease while the Dollar General Crop. Shares fell by 3.8%.