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* Healthcare hit by losses in Celgene, Bristol-Myers
* Energy stocks down as crude prices slip
* FedEx drops on Huawei delivery mix-up
* Dow up 0.03%, S&P 500 off 0.17%, Nasdaq down 0.32%
(New throughout, updates prices, market activity and comments
to market close)
By Stephen Culp
NEW YORK, June 24 (Reuters) - The S&P 500 edged lower on
Monday as losses by healthcare companies overshadowed gains in
the technology sector, while investors awaited U.S. President
Donald Trump's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the
G20 summit this week.
The Nasdaq slipped but tariff-sensitive industrials, headed
up by Boeing Co BA.N , led the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial
Average to a nominal advance.
While the bellwether S&P 500 ended the session in the red,
it remained within a hair's breadth of its all-time closing high
reached last Thursday as markets reacted to a dovish statement
from the U.S. Federal Reserve.
Market players hope Trump and Xi will de-escalate the trade
war that has been blamed for a global economic slowdown.
"Today's very quiet," said Bruce Monrad, chairman and
trustee at Northeast Investors Trust in Boston. "People are
digesting the Fed and looking forward to possible outcomes of
the G20 and how that could in turn affect the Fed going
forward."
A Fed rate cut in July "may be locked and loaded but could
be somewhat contingent on what happens at the G20," Monrad
added.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 8.41 points, or
0.03%, to 26,727.54, the S&P 500 .SPX lost 5.11 points, or
0.17%, to 2,945.35 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC dropped
26.01 points, or 0.32%, to 8,005.70.
Six of the 11 major sectors in the S&P 500 lost ground, with
the biggest percentage drop for energy stocks .SPNY as crude
prices LCOc1 fell.
In the latest trade-related squabble, FedEx Corp FDX.N
apologized for mistakenly returning a Huawei HWT.UL phone to
its sender, after misrouting packages from the Chinese tech firm
last month. The move provoked the ire of Chinese authorities and
raised the prospect of FedEx being added to China's "unreliable
entities" list. The package delivery firm's shares slid by 2.7%.
Caesars Entertainment Corp CZR.O jumped 14.5% on news that
rival Eldorado Resorts Inc ERI.O had agreed to buy the casino
operator for $8.5 billion. Eldorado dropped 10.6%. United Technologies Corp UTX.N advanced 1.1% after Cowen &
Co upgraded it to "outperform" from "market perform."
Celgene Corp CELG.O slipped 5.5% after Bristol-Myers
Squibb Co BMY.N announced that its planned $74 billion deal to
buy the drugmaker was expected to close at the end of 2019 or
beginning 2020, later than expected. Bristol-Myers fell 7.4%.
Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a
1.44-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 2.27-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
The S&P 500 posted 35 new 52-week highs and 5 new lows; the
Nasdaq Composite recorded 42 new highs and 82 new lows.
Volume on U.S. exchanges was 6.31 billion shares, compared
to the 7.05 billion average over the last 20 trading days.