Wall St. muted with focus on trade talks, Fed minutes By Reuters

By Shreyashi Sanyal

(Reuters) – US stocks were little changed on Wednesday as investors weighed the latest developments in US-China trade negotiations while waiting for minutes from the Federal Reserves January political meeting.

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that trade discussions with China went well and suggested he was open to extend the deadline to complete the negotiations, saying that March 1[ads1] was not a "magical" date.

So far, it was assumed that US rates of $ 200 billion of Chinese imports would rise to 25 percent from 10 percent if there was no trade agreement then.

"A market-friendly outcome this week will be for both parties to agree to extend the deadline on March 1, which should provide more time to find a mid-term on trade policy," says FXTM analyst Lukman Otunuga in a client note.

"Trump says the talks are" very complicated "and today's March deadline is not a" magical date ", a breakthrough collaboration is still a bit far away."

The federal open market selection is slated to release minutes from the meeting in January at 14.00. ET (1900 GMT), which provides more guidance on monetary policy.

The protocol is expected to confirm the Federal Reserve's statement last month that it would be "patient" with further interest rate increases after the markets were released late in December due to fears of an economic downturn.

The finance sector fell 0.29 percent.

"Investors expect more details on the decline in Fed's balance and obviously more clues on the Fed break," wrote Peter Cardillo, market economist at Spartan Capital Securities, in a client note.

The reference has climbed around 18 percent from the December decline, driven by optimism on trade, a largely optimistic fourth-quarter earnings season and a dovish Fed.

Gains in Apple Inc (NASDAQ 🙂 and chipmakers put the index on track to rise for the eighth day.

At 9:53 ET is up 10.31 points, or 0.04 percent, of 25,901.63. The S&P 500 was down 0.06 points, or 0.00 percent, at 2,779.70 and the Nasdaq Composite was up 15.12 points, or 0.20 percent, at 7.501.88.

Health care fell 0.4 percent, weighted by an 8.7 percent drop in shares in CVS Health Corp (NYSE :). The operating chain operator missed the full-year outlook due to weakness in its long-term healthcare business.

Southwest Airlines (NYSE 🙂 Co fell 5.2 percent after carrier declined quarterly revenue per seat mile forecast on weak passenger demand and a $ 60 million hit from partial US government closure.

The airline drove shares from other airlines, and sent the Dow Jones US Airlines index down 2.66 percent.

Garmin Ltd (NASDAQ 🙂 jumped 14 percent, mostly at S & P, after predicting full-year results over expectations and reported strong quarterly earnings on increased demand for their smartwatches and navigation systems.

Accelerated problems exceeded decliners by a ratio of 1.17 to 1 on the NYSE and with a 1.17 to 1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P index recorded 16 new 52-week highs and no new downs, while Nasdaq recorded 52 new heights and eight new lows.