(Reuters) - Wall Street edged higher on Wednesday as Macy’s strong results helped drive gains in retails stocks and more than offset losses in energy shares.
Macy’s (M.N) rose 5.7 percent after reporting a much better-than-expected rise in same-store sales and quarterly profit in the first quarter. That helped shares of other retailers, including J. C. Penney (JCP.N), Kohl’s (KSS.N) and Nordstrom (JWN.N), which were all up between 1.5 percent and 3 percent.
The consumer discretionary index .SPLRCD rose 0.61 percent, providing the biggest boost to the S&P 500 index.
However, a fall in oil prices and growing doubts about the U.S.-North Korea summit next month capped gains on the major indexes.
North Korea threw next month’s summit between Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump into doubt, threatening weeks of diplomatic progress by saying it may reconsider if Washington insists it unilaterally gives up its nuclear weapons.
The country’s threat to cancel the June 12 summit in Singapore adds to the jitters in the market, which is already dealing with China-U.S. trade tensions and inflation concerns.
Oil prices took a hit from an anticipated rise in U.S. crude inventory, pulling the S&P energy index .SPNY down 0.25 percent.
At 9:55 a.m. EDT the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI was up 44.59 points, or 0.18 percent, at 24,751.00, the S&P 500 .SPX was up 8.13 points, or 0.30 percent, at 2,719.58 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC was up 26.33 points, or 0.36 percent, at 7,377.96.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI and the
