NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks ended down slightly on Thursday after President Donald Trump canceled a planned summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and threatened to impose tariffs on auto imports, though losses were limited by gains in Netflix and General Electric.
Trump’s order on Wednesday for an investigation into whether vehicle and auto part imports had damaged the U.S. auto industry could further complicate trade negotiations with China and other trading partners.
Early Thursday, Trump canceled the June 12 meeting citing Pyongyang’s “open hostility,” even after North Korea followed through on a pledge to blow up tunnels at its nuclear test site.
But stocks recouped much of the day’s losses by the end of the session, and market participants said the sharp drop after the summit was canceled was a knee-jerk reaction.
“People were genuinely pleased that it was going to happen,” said Peter Tuz, president of Chase Investment Counsel in Charlottesville, Virginia.
“And I still wouldn’t be surprised to see a reversal of this reversal sometime in the next few weeks as each side sits down and thinks about what’s really in its best interest.”
A decline in energy shares following lower oil prices also weighed on the market, with the S&P energy index .SPNY ending down 1.7 percent. On the flip side, General Electric (GE.N) rose 3 percent, rebounding from the previous session’s losses, and Netflix’s (NFLX.O) stock gained 1.3 percent, both helping the market.
Netflix’s stock market value ballooned to a record $153 billion and eclipsed Walt Disney Co (DIS.N) for the first time, making it the world’s
