GLOBAL MARKET - NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks and government debt yields fell on Thursday after the release of a whistleblower complaint that accused President Donald Trump of pressing Ukraine to investigate one of his main political rivals in next year's U.S. presidential election.
Yields on the benchmark U.S. 10-year Treasury note fell below 1.7% for most of the session and stocks on Wall Street slid, leading a gauge of equity performance around the globe to pare gains and trade lower on the day.
European shares closed solidly in the black after the Chinese commerce ministry said the United States and China were making preparations to ensure "positive progress" during the next round of U.S.-Sino trade trades.
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But a Bloomberg report that said the United States was unlikely to extend a waiver over Huawei Technologies' blacklisting helped put a damper on U.S. stocks as such a decision could potentially impact talks with China.
Wall Street briefly turned positive in late trading on remarks by China's top diplomat that Beijing was willing to buy more U.S. products and that trade talks would yield results if both sides "take more enthusiastic measures" to show goodwill.
Traders closely watched a congressional hearing at which the acting director of U.S. national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, testified about the whistleblower report after refusing for weeks to share the report with Congress.
Concerns about the whistleblower complaint triggered the rally in U.S. Treasury bonds, said Justin Lederer, Treasury analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald in New York.