UKX FTSE 100 Index

By Riva Gold 
   -- FTSE 100 breaks new ground 
 
   -- Italian assets steady 
 
   -- Brent crude rises 

U.S. stocks bounced between small gains and losses Tuesday, a day after waning concerns about trade tensions between the U.S. and China helped send major global indexes to their highest close in months.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 40 points, or 0.2%, to 24973, after rising Monday above 25,000 for the first time since March. The S&P 500 climbed 0.1%, and the Nasdaq Composite added less than 0.1%.

Six of the 11 sectors in the S&P 500 rose, led by shares in financials and telecom companies, which both rose 1.1%.

In corporate news, shares of Micron Technology climbed 7.4% after the memory-chip maker unveiled a $10 billion stock-buyback plan. Shares of J.C. Penney fell 4% after Chief Executive Marvin Ellison said he was leaving the company to run Lowe's. Shares of Lowe's fell 1.4%.

Tuesday's mixed tone in markets came after industrial companies rallied on Wall Street on Monday after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the U.S. would suspend its efforts to apply tariffs to $150 billion in Chinese imports.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that the U.S. and China agreed on the broad outline of a deal that would save imperiled Chinese telecom giant ZTE. President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he "envisions" the company being fined as much as $1.3 billion and noted there is no final agreement regarding the firm.

"Anything tied to economic growth and the business cycle is going to be bid up in this environment where we get news that maybe the 'trade war' is less of a risk than it was prior to the comments," said Jason Ware, chief investment officer at Albion Financial Group.

Recent news "suggests that things are on hold for now, as far as this escalating into something that would be truly bad for the global economy and therefore global markets," he added.

For some, news around trade without specifics carries less weight.

Brian Smoluch, portfolio manager for Hood River Capital Management, who focuses on small-cap firms, said general comments on trade with China are "too general to make any sort of concrete investment move."

"The [market's] short-term gyrations are unpredictable," he said.

The Stoxx Europe 600 edged up 0.3%, while the U.K.'s FTSE 100 rose 0.2% to a record close, supported for most of May by gains in the U.S. dollar against the British pound and a rally in commodity prices that has lifted shares of energy and mining companies.

The WSJ Dollar Index was about flat, while U.S. crude added 0.1% to $72.43.

In Asia, small earlier gains in the yen pressured Japanese multinationals, with the Nikkei edging down 0.2% from a two-month high.

--Allison Prang and Giovanni Legorano contributed to this article.

Write to Riva Gold at riva.gold@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 22, 2018 13:29 ET (17:29 GMT)

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