Investing.com – Wall Street traded with mixed signs, with both the Dow and the S&P near the unchanged mark, as traders evaluated the impact of Hurricane Harvey throughout markets on Monday.
At 11:56AM ET (15:56GMT), the Dow Jones slipped 7 points, or 0.03%, the S&P 500 inched up 1 point, or 0.05%, while the Nasdaq Composite traded up 23 points, or 0.36%.
With no major economic data on Monday’s docket, the impact of Hurricane Harvey was the primary focus for markets, as the storm crippled Houston and its port, while reportedly knocking out 11% of U.S. refining capacity.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said on Monday that Harvey was moving away from the coast but was expected to linger close to the shore through Tuesday, and that floods would spread from Texas eastward to Louisiana.
Gasoline futures jumped as much as 7% to their highest level in more than two years early Monday as traders took stock of the storm's havoc.
After touching an intraday high of $1.6188, its highest level since July 2015, gasoline futures pared gains, rising 2.91% to $1.5857 a gallon by 11:57AM ET (15:57GMT).
Despite the tragedy, oil prices slumped on Monday as the International Energy Agency said there was no reason to release fuel from emergency stockpiles to compensate for the disruption caused by Harvey as oil markets were well supplied, raising the specter of the global supply glut and the apparent ineffectiveness of OPEC to rebalance markets.
Perhaps adding to the temporary impact of the hurricane, data released Monday from research company IIR suggested that the disruption would reduce available refining capacity by just 537,000 barrels per day (bpd) in the week ending September 1 and that offline capacity would fall to just 137,000 bpd in the week ending September 8.
U.S. crude futures sank 3.20% to $46.34 by 11:58AM ET (15:58GMT), while Brent oil traded down 1.39% to $51.26.
With regard to stocks, Harvey also had an impact on Monday with The Travelers (NYSE:TRV) slumping nearly 3% and leading decliners on the Dow as market participants predicted the insurers’ claims to rise.
At the same time, Home Depot (NYSE:HD) led advancers on the blue-chip index with gains of more than 1% on expectations that demand for the home improvement retailer’s products would increase once the tragedy had past and those affected begin to rebuild their damaged homes.