Stocks Start Week Sideways             06/24 10:46

   U.S. stocks moved sideways in early trading Monday on Wall Street after 
notching their third straight weekly win.




   NEW YORK (AP) -- U.S. stocks moved sideways in early trading Monday on Wall 
Street after notching their third straight weekly win.

   Investors eased into trading ahead of a highly anticipated meeting between 
the U.S. and China's leaders later this week. The world's two largest economies 
have been embroiled in a trade war that has taken the market on a volatile 
roller-coaster ride this year and Wall Street is hoping for a deal.

   Technology and financial stocks did most of the heavy lifting and acted as a 
counterweight for losses in the health care and energy sectors.

   Microsoft and Apple both made solid gains. Oracle and Broadcom rose 1.3%. 
Goldman Sachs rose 1.2% and State Street rose 1.7%. Banks including Bank of 
America and Citigroup also moved higher.

   Health care stocks led the losers as pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers 
Squibb and its buyout target Celgene stumbled.

   Energy companies were also among the early losers. Occidental Petroleum fell 
1.2% and Marathon Petroleum fell 1.3%.

   KEEPING SCORE: The S&P 500 index rose slightly as 10:10 a.m. Eastern time. 
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 56 points, or 0.2%, to 26,777. The Nasdaq 
composite fell 0.1%.

   FOCUSING ON TRADE: Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping plan to meet at 
the Group of 20 summit in Japan, which starts Friday. Wall Street is once again 
hoping that the two sides can find a path to making a deal that will end their 
trade war.

   Uncertainty over the dispute and its potential impact on global economic 
growth sent the broader market on a bumpy ride during the second quarter as the 
tensions escalated. The S&P 500 reached a record high last week that gave it 
the final push to recovering all of its losses from May.

   The two sides are in a stalemate after 11 rounds of talks that have failed 
to overcome U.S. concerns over China's acquisition of American technology and 
its massive trade surplus. China denies forcing U.S. companies to hand over 
trade secrets and says the surplus is much smaller than it appears.

   HIGH ROLLER: Caesars surged 14.3% after Eldorado Resorts said it will buy 
the casino operator for $17.3 billion in a cash-and-stock deal.

   The deal creates a casino giant with about 60 casinos and resorts in 16 
states under a single name. Caesars has been struggling since emerging from 
bankruptcy in 2017. Billionaire investor Carl Icahn took an enormous stake in 
the company and pushed for big changes. Eldorado fell 8.2%.

   COSTLY TREATMENT: Pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb fell 6% after 
it said it would divest a blockbuster drug in order to complete its buyout of 
Celgene. Celgene fell 4.2 %

   The company is trying to gain Federal Trade Commission approval for its $74 
billion buyout of Celgene as it tries to beef up its portfolio of drugs. 
Bristol-Myers said it is willing to divest the psoriasis treatment Otezla as 
part of a push toward regulatory approval. 


(CZ)