While you were sleeping: Amazon shares rise on Cyber Monday

Tuesday 28th November 2017

Wall Street was mixed as shares of Amazon rose amid signs of robust spending by shoppers on Cyber Monday, the busiest online spending day of the year, while energy stocks followed oil prices lower.

US shoppers spent US$840 million online as of 10am in New York on Monday, up 17 percent from a year ago, Bloomberg reported, citing Adobe Systems, in line with Adobe's forecast of the day’s sales to reach US$6.6 billion.

Shares of Amazon traded 1.3 percent higher as of 1.17pm in New York after climbing to a record earlier in the session.

In 1.11pm trading in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.2 percent. However, the Nasdaq Composite Index inched 0.04 percent lower. In 12.56pm trading, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index slipped 0.03 percent.

Also gaining were shares of the Home Depot, up 1 percent as of 1.19pm, and those of Lowe’s, up 0.7 percent, amid better-than-expected industry data with a Commerce Department report showing new home sales jumped in October to their highest level in a decade.

“Investors are looking at retail stocks as Black Friday and Cyber Monday have been a good start to the holiday season, and much stronger data on new home sales has lifted the market higher,” Kim Forrest, research analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group in Pittsburgh, told Reuters.

The Dow moved higher as gains in shares of Verizon and those of Cisco, up 1.2 percent each respectively, outweighed declines in shares of DowDuPont and those of Chevron, recently down 1 percent and 0.9 percent respectively.

Chevron and other energy stocks slid with the price of oil as investors look towards Thursday’s meeting of OPEC and other key oil producers about extending an agreement aimed at curbing the global glut.

“After rallying to a two-and-a-half year high, WTI is stumbling lower ahead of the OPEC meeting later this week, as fears creep in that a production cut extension may not be formally announced,” Matt Smith, director of commodity research at Clipper Data, told Bloomberg.

In the latest corporate deal news, shares of Time jumped, up 9.5 percent as of 1.21pm in New York, after Meredith Corp said it agreed to buy the company that publishes Fortune, People and Sports Illustrated for about US$1.85 billion in cash. Shares of Meredith also rallied, recently trading 11.7 percent higher.

In Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index finished the session with a 0.5 percent retreat from the previous close. The UK’s FTSE 100 Index slid 0.4 percent, Germany’s DAX Index fell 0.5 percent, while France’s CAC 40 Index dropped 0.6 percent.

(BusinessDesk)

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