Mixed amid concerns the U.S.-China summit may not materialize… Dow 'record high' [New York market briefing]

The three major U.S. stock indexes in New York closed mixed. The move is seen as reflecting heightened caution after U.S. President Donald Trump said a summit with China might not take place.

On the 21st (local time) at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 46,924.74, up 218.16 points (0.47%) from the previous session. The Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500 rose 0.22 points (0.00%) to 6,735.35, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 36.88 points (0.16%) to 22,953.67.

The Dow set record highs both intraday and at the close. By contrast, tech stocks were relatively weak.

Apple rose again, moving toward a market capitalization of $4 trillion, as optimism over strong iPhone 17 sales persisted. Apple's market cap stood at $3.9 trillion. If Apple surpasses $4 trillion in market cap, it would be the third company ever to do so after NVIDIA and Microsoft.

However, the Nasdaq turned downward in the afternoon after President Trump said a summit with China might not take place.

President Trump said of China, "I am scheduled to meet Xi Jinping (China's) president in two weeks and we will talk about many things when we meet in Korea," but added, "Maybe it (the meeting) may not happen."

Those remarks led to steep declines in tech stocks. Alphabet, which had been strong recently, fell more than 4% intraday before narrowing losses to the 2% range. NVIDIA, Broadcom, and Tesla also fell around 1%.

Netflix's third-quarter results, released after the market close, fell short of market expectations and the stock is down more than 5% in after-hours trading. Netflix said its adjusted third-quarter earnings per share (EPS) were $5.87, and revenue was $11.51 billion. The EPS missed the market consensus compiled by financial data firm LSEG.

Netflix explained that operating margin was 28%, lower than the market forecast (31.5%), due to costs from a dispute with Brazilian tax authorities.

Amazon rose 2.56% after AWS, its cloud services unit, experienced a major 'outage' the previous day. Analysts said the outage showed that more companies than expected rely on Amazon's AWS.

Coca-Cola jumped 4% after third-quarter results beat expectations. General Motors (GM) surged 15% on news of a 'surprise' third-quarter performance. Defense contractor RTX rose more than 7% after raising its outlook for aerospace and defense.

According to the CME's FedWatch tool, federal funds rate futures reflected a 98.7% probability of a 0.5%-point rate cut by December. The probability of a 0.75% cut shrank to 0.2%.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) Volatility Index (VIX) fell 0.36 points (1.97%) to 17.87 from the previous session.

Ko Jeong-sam, Hankyung.com reporter jsk@hankyung.com