US open: Mixed open on the Street ahead of US-China trade talks

Wall Street trading kicked off on a mixed note on Monday as investors grew optimistic ahead of US-China trade talks later in the week.

As of 1540 BST, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.42% to 25,777.63 and the S&P 500 had moved 0.17% stronger to 2,854.93. The Nasdaq however was 0.09% lower at 7,809.60.

IG market analyst Joshua Mahony said: "Markets often find it difficult to focus on one topic, and thus with the focus now shifting away from Turkey and towards China, it comes as no surprise that the pessimism of last week is fading into obscurity."

However, Mahony added that this newfound optimism was likely to be "ill-founded", noting that all the previous meetings between the two nations had shown "precious few signs of anything that looks like a breakthrough."

Elsewhere, Turkey was also in focus after Standard & Poor's and Moody's downgraded the country's credit rating further into junk territory on Friday.

CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson said that while the move was largely expected, it could prompt a similar downgrade to Turkey's banks in the coming days, which are already struggling with the measures taken by Turkey's authorities to support the lira.

"By making the currency more difficult to trade and limiting the ability of both domestic and overseas banks to hedge their currency exposure, the decline in the currency could well regain its pace in the coming days, after last week's late rebound," Hewson said.

On the corporate front, PepsiCo was up 0.58% after agreeing to buy Israel's SodaStream for $3.2bn. SodaStream shares climbed 8.69% on the back of the news.

Meanwhile, Tyson Foods dipped 0.032% after agreeing to buy Keystone Foods for $2.16bn.

Cosmetics maker Estee Lauder was 4.08% higher in early trade after turning in a set of fourth-quarter sales that beat analysts' expectations.

Electric car maker Tesla was down 2.69% following a report that Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, PIF, was in talks to invest in one of the company's rivals, Lucid Motors.