Dow Jumps, Nasdaq Falls As Trump Acts In Absence Of Aid Deal

Wall Street was mixed early Monday, with Nasdaq retreating further as investors digested President Donald Trump's efforts to take unilateral action in the absence of a deal with Congress on emergency pandemic spending.

About an hour into the first trading session of the week, the tech-rich Nasdaq was down 0.4 percent to 10,963.75, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.95 percent to 27,686.07 and the broad-based S&P 500 rose 0.2 percent to 3,357.96.

Trump signed four executive orders over the weekend to defer payroll taxes, impose a moratorium on evictions, and provide $400 in weekly unemployment benefits, to be partially paid by states, to replace the $600 weekly payments that expired at the end of July.

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met several times last week with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to try to reach a compromise deal on a new aid package.

However, Mnuchin called the Democratic proposal for aid to state and local governments "absurd," although he said Monday on CNBC that "there's a deal to do if the Democrats are reasonable and want to compromise."

McDonald's dropped 0.9 percent after the company announced it was suing former CEO Steve Easterbrook to recover compensation after discovering he lied "and destroyed information" about relationships with three other employees, and gave stock worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to one of the employees.

Twitter gained 1.9 percent amid reports the social media giant held talks to combine with Chinese video app TikTok which Trump last week banned from the US amid what he said were security concerns.

He also imposed restrictions on WeChat which in the latest series of moves aimed at Beijing, which have further undermined relations between the world's two largest economies.