Stocks Skid But Nasdaq Rises On Three Pieces Of Good News

U.S. stock indexes advanced out of the gate Tuesday but reversed lower and remained down at midday. News on North Korea, tariffs and the debate on a partial rollback of the Dodd-Frank law gave the stock market three items to chew on.

At noon on Wall Street, the Nasdaq was just above flat, rising 0.1%, while the S&P 500 lost less than 0.2%. The blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average fell 0.5%.

Nasdaq volume rose in the stock market today.

South Korean officials said Tuesday that North Korea would be willing to begin negotiations with the U.S. on abandoning Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program.

President Trump commented on Twitter that North Korea's offer "may be false hope but the U.S. is ready to go hard in either direction."

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The New York Times reported that the formula of denuclearization in exchange for guarantees that the U.S. will not attack North Korea has been the basis for unsuccessful results in the past.

The stock market backed off early gains, perhaps reflecting past dead-ends with North Korea.

Tariff Flexibility

On the tariff front, Trump hinted at flexibility.

Trump tweeted that if Canada and Mexico agree to a new and fair North American Free Trade Agreement then the two nations could be exempt from the tariffs.

United States Steel (X) headed toward a third straight stock loss after Thursday's almost 6% gain. News on the Trump tariffs first broke Thursday.

Banks And Dodd-Frank

Also, the U.S. Senate will begin debate this week on legislation that would roll back or eliminate parts of the Dodd-Frank law. The rollback legislation is known as the Crapo bill because of its primary sponsor, Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho. The Crapo bill has support from 10 Democrats and is expected to get about 70 votes.

Bank stocks did not react much, perhaps because all but the timing of passage was previously known. Most of the bank groups are trading just under their 50-day moving average lines. The superregional and West-Southwest groups are holding above their 50-day lines.

Western Alliance Bancorp (WAL), a Phoenix-based bank, is trying for its fourth gain in a row. Western Alliance has a place in IBD's Sector Leaders screen, which has IBD's most stringent standards. The stock is just above a 60.35 buy point.

SVB Financial Group (SIVB), a superregional bank based in California, is looking for its fourth straight gain. SVB is approaching a 263.19 buy point. The stock is in a flat base.

Utilities Sag

Among IBD's 197 industry groups, gold miners and metal ore miners scored strong gains. Data storage, semiconductor gear, computer networking gear and solar stocks also posted gains of 1% or more.

Electric utilities sagged. The electric utilities group has been declining since early December and is 14% off its high.

In the 30-component Dow Jones industrial average, three stocks rose 1.5% or more: Intel (INTC), up 3%; Chevron (CVX), up 1.7%; and Caterpillar (CAT), up 1.5%.

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