Stocks Waver in Early Trade; Oil Recovers

Major stock indexes drifted in early Wednesday trading, while the price of crude oil recovered after a big drop the day before.

KEEPING SCORE: The Dow Jones industrial average slipped 20 points to 16,310 as of 10:05 a.m. Eastern time. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index slipped one point to 1,941 and the Nasdaq composite slipped a fraction of a point to 4,756.

DEAL CHATTER: Reports that Citrix Systems, a cloud-computing company, is trying to sell itself pushed its stock up 2 percent. Under pressure from the hedge fund Elliott Management, Citrix has reportedly talked to private equity firms and other companies about a deal. Its stock climbed $1.14 to $73.29.

VOLATILE: Mounting concerns about slowing global economic growth and the timing of the Federal Reserve’s first interest-rate hike in nearly a decade has battered markets in recent months. The S&P 500, the most widely used measure of U.S. investments, has lost more than 8 percent in three months.

EUROPE: France’s CAC 40 rose 0.5 percent. Germany’s DAX gained 0.8 percent. Britain’s FTSE 100 was up 1.9 percent.

CHINA: Markets in Asia were hit by more signs of weaker Chinese manufacturing. The preliminary Caixin/Markit manufacturing index fell to the lowest level in six years. The survey showed weaker factory production, overall new orders and hiring.

ASIA’S DAY: China’s Shanghai Composite Index dropped 2.2 percent, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng sank 2.3 percent. South Korea’s Kospi fell 1.9 percent, and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost 2.1 percent. Japan‘s stock market remains closed until Thursday for public holidays.

CRUDE: The price of benchmark crude oil edged up 28 cents to $46.64 a barrel in New York. It had plunged 2 percent the day before.

BONDS & CURRENCIES: Bond prices fell. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.16 percent from 2.13 percent the day before. The U.S. dollar strengthened to 120.48 yen while the euro gained slightly to $1.1170.