Wall St Edges Higher As Retail Stocks Gain

Wall Street edged higher on Wednesday as Macy’s strong results helped drive gains in retails stocks and more than offset losses in energy shares. Macy’s rose 5.7 percent after reporting a much better-than-expected rise in same-store sales and quarterly profit in the first quarter. That helped shares of other retailers, including J. C. Penney, Kohl’s and Nordstrom, which were all up between 1.5 percent and 3 percent. However, a fall in oil prices and growing doubts about the U.S.-North Korea summit next month capped gains on the major indexes. North Korea threw next month’s summit between Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump into doubt, threatening weeks of diplomatic progress by saying it may reconsider if Washington insists it unilaterally gives up its nuclear weapons. Read more at Nasdaq.