Major benchmarks gave up some ground on Monday morning, with market participants reacting negatively to signs that the U.S. and China might not actually find resolution on the trade front as quickly as hoped. Some investors also seemed nervous about how quickly the stock market has posted strong gains in its latest move into record territory. As of 11 a.m. EST, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES: ^DJI) was down 11 points to 27,994. The S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) fell 4 points to 3,117, and the Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX: ^IXIC) moved lower by 20 points to 8,521.
A couple weeks ago, HP (NYSE: HPQ) got an unexpected merger offer from Xerox (NYSE: XRX), and yesterday, Xerox got its answer. Meanwhile, Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) made a decision on a key addition to its infrastructure, and although it didn't get as much publicity as its controversial HQ2 selection did last year, it still had big implications for a Southern state.
Shares of HP fell 1% after the printer and computer hardware company responded to Xerox's early November offer to combine forces. Although the answer wasn't what some HP investors had hoped, it still left the door open to talks in the future.