Wall St has mixed open as US listed Chinese firms fell on regulation woes

U.S. stock indexes were set for a mixed open on Tuesday, as investors returned from a long holiday weekend to focus on Beijing’s crackdown on several U.S.-listed Chinese firms, while energy stocks rose as oil prices touched multi-year highs.

Didi Global Inc shares slumped as much as 25% in premarket trading after Chinese regulators ordered over the weekend the company’s app be taken down days after its $4.4 billion listing on the New York Stock Exchange.

Other U.S.-listed Chinese e-commerce firms, including Alibaba Group, Baidu Inc and JD.com, fell between 1% to 3.2%, with the Chinese crackdown also weighing on the global markets.

Investors, meanwhile, waited for clues from the U.S. Federal Reserve’s policy minutes on when quantitative easing might be tapered. It will be released on Wednesday.

Wall Street is sensitive to any hints of a hawkish shift in the Fed’s tone, as market participants have moved between “value” and “growth” stocks in the past few sessions on fears that a potentially stronger-than-expected economic recovery could force the central bank to cut back its support.

The benchmark S&P 500 index notched record closing highs seven straight days on Friday, its longest streak of record closes since June 1997, helped by Microsoft Corp, Apple Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Alphabet Inc.

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“They’ve just been small new highs and it is basically a reflection that investors feel they have got nowhere else to go,” said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA.

“The confidence is supported by the fact that investors are willing to rotate rather than just bailing out altogether.”

Oil prices hit multi-year highs after talks between OPEC+ producers collapsed, with major energy companies including Occidental Petroleum Co, Chevron Corp and APA Corp rising between 0.8% and 1.5%. [O/R]

At 8:31 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 29 points, or 0.08%, S&P 500 e-minis were down 1.5 points, or 0.03%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 26.25 points, or 0.18%.

Attention will also be on ISM non-manufacturing PMI data for June, which is expected to ease after hitting a record high of 64 in May. The report is due at 10 a.m. ET.

Second-quarter earnings season is set to begin next week with big banks, while investors also watched for progress on President Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill.

Among other stocks, American Express Co added 2.4% after Goldman Sachs raised its rating on the stock to “buy” from “neutral”.

U.S.-listed shares of China’s top two videogame streaming sites Huya and DouYu fell 2.3% and 6%, respectively, after China’s antitrust regulator said it will block Tencent Holdings Ltd’s plan to merge the firms.

Mobile gaming firm- Bilibili Inc fell 4.3%.

(Reporting by Devik Jain and Shreyashi Sanyal in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)