A man uses a kayak sail to propel himself on his skateboard ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Irma in Tampa, Florida, U.S., September 9, 2017. Reuters/Chris Wattie
New York: The S&P 500 was near flat on Friday as investors braced for potential damage from Hurricane Irma as it moved toward Florida and assessed the financial impact of Hurricane Harvey.
Geopolitical concerns also kept investors on edge as South Korea prepared for a possible further missile test by North Korea on Saturday, days after its sixth and largest nuclear test.
The Dow was up, helped by a rise in financial stocks, with most insurers, including Chubb and Travelers, up sharply.
The major indexes, however, were on track to end the week lower, with many economists forecasting that third-quarter GDP will take a blow from the hurricanes.
“Investors are really in a wait-and-see mode given their concern about the impact of Hurricane Irma on Florida and wherever else it ends up going,” said Kate Warne, investment strategist at Edward Jones in St Louis.
“Overall, we are seeing the market and investors sort of hunker down to see what the damage and destruction turns out to be,” she said.
Irma was set to hit Florida as early as Saturday, with FEMA warning that parts of Florida could be out of electricity for days, if not longer.
The hurricane, the strongest recorded in the Atlantic Ocean, comes on the heels of Harvey, which shut a quarter of US refineries and 8 percent of US oil production.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 40.85 points, or 0.19 percent, to 21,825.63, the S&P 500 lost 1.16 points, or 0.05 percent, to 2,463.94 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 31.25 points, or 0.49 percent, to 6,366.62.
Harvey may end up being the most expensive natural disaster in the United States since 1980, costing $70bn to $108bn, according to BofA Merrill Lynch.
The brokerage cut its estimate for third-quarter US GDP growth by 0.4 percentage points to 2.5 percent.
