Wall Street set to open flat as global growth fear persists by Reuters

By Shreyashi Sanyal

(Reuters) – Wall Street main indices were set to a flat open Wednesday, as global growth fear and a long-lasting inverted US yield curve led investors to delete risky assets.

Futures disliked any loss after a trade department's report showed that US trade deficits fell more than expected in January, probably as Chinese purchases of soybeans demanded a decline in exports after three rapid monthly declines.

Reference 1[ads1]0-year government bond yields fell to their lowest level since December 2017 on Wednesday, one day after showing signs of stabilization which increased the economy and helped lift the three main indices.

Wall Street has been feared to slow down global economic growth since last week after US, European and Japan factory data, as well as weak consumer confidence figures for March this week.

Adding to concerns over global growth, Chinese data showed on Wednesday that the industrial performance has slowed since late 2011 in the first two months of the year.

"There have been recent jitters and choppiness in the market created by a buffet of worries, it's not just one thing, so this morning investors are taking a break," said Andre Bakhos, CEO of New Vines Capital LLC in Bernardsville. , New Jersey.

"The yield curve that is reversed is another data point that investors look at, therefore our relationship with China and global growth becomes a concern."

On Wednesday, the European Central Bank said it could further delay a planned interest rate increase as it faces growing threats to growth, one week after the Federal Reserve left some interest rate hikes this year.

at 8:37 ET, was down 9 points, or 0.04 percent was down 0.5 points, or 0.02 percent and was up 6.25 points, or 0.08 percent.

Markets also expected new developments on US-China trade negotiations with a new round of high-level negotiations scheduled to start on Thursday.

Among stocks like him the premarket, Boeing (NYSE 🙂 Co rose 0.3 percent ahead of a scheduled briefing on its 737 MAX pilots and airline representatives in Washington later in the day.

Centes (NYSE 🙂 Corps shares fell 9.3 percent after health insurance said it would buy less competing WellCare Health Plans Inc for $ 15.27 billion. Shares in WellCare jumped 11.6 percent.

Southwest Airlines (NYSE 🙂 Co doubled 0.8 percent after the company reduced its economic outlook in the wake of the recent landings in the Boeing 737 MAX plans.

Lennar Corp. (NYSE 🙂 rose 2.3 percent when the homebuilder said it expected to improve the housing market even after missing Wall Street estimates for the first quarter.