Stocks opened lower as investors returned from the holiday weekend. Just as when they left, tensions over trade are in the forefront of the headlines as deal talks will restart with Canada shortly and big tariffs against China are still looming. Oil prices moved higher early in the session, but gave up some gains by midday with WTI crude trading just above $70 per barrel. ECONOMIC EVENTS: In the U.S., Markit's manufacturing PMI fell to 54.7 in the final reading for August. This is up from the 54.5 flash reading but down 0.6 points from the July reading of 55.3. The ISM manufacturing index bounced 3.2 points to 61.3 in August, more than retracing the 2.1 point drop to 58.1 in July and hitting a new 14-year high. Construction spending rebounded 0.1% in July after tumbling a revised 0.8% in June. COMPANY NEWS: Shares of Nike (NKE) are under pressure after the company announced that former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who sparked controversy by kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial injustice, will be one of the faces of its ad campaign for the 30th anniversary of its "Just Do It" motto. Many took to social media to voice their opinions, with some showing support but others pushing the #BoycottNike and #JustBurnIt hashtags to trend on Twitter... The NFL and Kaepernick have been targets of prior Trump tweets, but they have not generated a response yet this morning from the President on his platform of choice. However, President Trump has taken aim at Comcast's (CMCSA) NBC, tweeting: "NBC FAKE NEWS, which is under intense scrutiny over their killing the Harvey Weinstein story, is now fumbling around making excuses for their probably highly unethical conduct. I have long criticized NBC and their journalistic standards-worse than even CNN. Look at their license?"... Amazon (AMZN) shares crossed above the level that would give the company a $1T market cap for the first time in late morning trading, though the stock had pulled back to have a market cap just below that round-number level near noon. MAJOR MOVERS: Among the noteworthy gainers was Cronos Group (CRON), which rose 14% after it announced a partnership with Ginkgo Bioworks to produce cultured cannabinoids. Also higher was Ocean Rig UDW (ORIG), which gained 11% after it agreed to be acquired by Transocean (RIG) for $2.7B. Transocean shares were down 7.5% following the deal announcement. Among the other notable losers was Arista Networks (ANET), which slipped 2% after Morgan Stanley downgraded the stock to Equal Weight from Overweight. Also lower was Conn's (CONN), which fell 11% after reporting quarterly results. INDEXES: Near midday, the Dow was down 89.21, or 0.34%, to 25,875.61, the Nasdaq was down 44.13, or 0.54%, to 8,065.40, and the S&P 500 was down 10.59, or 0.36%, to 2,890.93.
