<p class="title">US stocks were mixed at the start of 2019's final trading day, with Wall Street still poised to clinch its best annual performance in six years.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The split start came despite a pre-opening tweet from President Donald Trump, announcing that a new partial US-China trade would be signed in Washington in mid-January.</p>.<p class="bodytext">A brisk rally in the recent weeks has lifted stocks to a string of all-time highs, boosted by hopes for sustained economic growth and a cooling of the US-China trade conflict.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"The ceremony will take place at the White House. High level representatives of China will be present," Trump tweeted.</p>.<p class="bodytext">He said he would then travel to Beijing to continue negotiations "at a later date."</p>.<p class="bodytext">Fifteen minutes into the day's trading session, the benchmark Dow Jones Industrial Average was down less than a tenth of a percent at 28,452.24.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Meanwhile, the broader S&P 500 was essentially flat at 3,221.56 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq was up 0.1 percent at 8,951.99.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"From a broad standpoint, everything went up this year," analyst Patrick O'Hare wrote at Briefing.com</p>.<p class="bodytext">"Large-cap stocks, small-cap stocks, mid-cap stocks -- they all went up. Cyclical sectors, countercyclical sectors -- they all went up."</p>.<p class="bodytext">Economic data from China showed that country's manufacturing sector expanded, but only just barely, in December.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Later Tuesday, the Conference Board was due to publish December consumer-confidence data for December. Economists expect it to show that a significant increase occurred during the holiday shopping period.</p>
<p class="title">US stocks were mixed at the start of 2019's final trading day, with Wall Street still poised to clinch its best annual performance in six years.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The split start came despite a pre-opening tweet from President Donald Trump, announcing that a new partial US-China trade would be signed in Washington in mid-January.</p>.<p class="bodytext">A brisk rally in the recent weeks has lifted stocks to a string of all-time highs, boosted by hopes for sustained economic growth and a cooling of the US-China trade conflict.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"The ceremony will take place at the White House. High level representatives of China will be present," Trump tweeted.</p>.<p class="bodytext">He said he would then travel to Beijing to continue negotiations "at a later date."</p>.<p class="bodytext">Fifteen minutes into the day's trading session, the benchmark Dow Jones Industrial Average was down less than a tenth of a percent at 28,452.24.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Meanwhile, the broader S&P 500 was essentially flat at 3,221.56 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq was up 0.1 percent at 8,951.99.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"From a broad standpoint, everything went up this year," analyst Patrick O'Hare wrote at Briefing.com</p>.<p class="bodytext">"Large-cap stocks, small-cap stocks, mid-cap stocks -- they all went up. Cyclical sectors, countercyclical sectors -- they all went up."</p>.<p class="bodytext">Economic data from China showed that country's manufacturing sector expanded, but only just barely, in December.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Later Tuesday, the Conference Board was due to publish December consumer-confidence data for December. Economists expect it to show that a significant increase occurred during the holiday shopping period.</p>