(MENAFN- ProactiveInvestors)US shares made a nervy start to Tuesday Morning as markets continue to follow the tendency of the oil price. The US followed European shares which headed south and as the volatile oil market came into focus again. Brent crude slipped around 1.5% to $34.15 while the West Texas Intermediate spilled almost 2.3% to $32.64 ahead of a speech by Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi. The Dow was around 85 points down at 16535 while the Nasdaq eased 31 at 4537 and the broader S&P500 gained nudged 13 lower to 1933. In company news Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has waded into the battle between the FBI and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) over the hacking of a phone belonging to one of the killers in the December mass shooting in San Bernadino. The two are in a legal battle; with Apple looking to protect its code - which is covered by the US's free-speech law - while the FBI want to weaken the encryption process to help with investigations. Shares in Apple eased almost 1% in New York to stand at US$96. Elsewhere Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) is pitching its cloud computing service to big U.S. banks including CitiGroup (NYSE:C) and JP Morgan (NYSE:JPM). It is a move to break into financial services which has long been dominated by International Business Machines IBM (NYSE:IBM) and Microsoft (NYSE:MSFT). Microsoft lost around 1.5% to $26.23 while IBM lowered more than half a per cent to $132.84. Amazon was more than 2% down at $547.54. It wasn't all doom and gloom however as Home Depot (NYSE:HD) saw sales hike almost 10% in its latest quarter leading it to beat market expectations. The home improvement tool retailer also lifted its quarterly dividend 17% to 69 cents a share. Shares of Home Depot which have fallen around 5% this year were 1.7% higher at $125. MARKET PREVIEW US shares are seen opening lower as European shares head south and as the volatile oil market comes into focus again. Crude futures have dropped around 2% ahead of a closely monitored speech by Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi in the US after last week the biggest crude exporter agreed to freeze output at January levels but no one else has signed up yet. Energy stocks helped boost US stocks yesterday. The Dow closed 228 points ahead at 16620 while the Nasdaq added 67 at 4571 and the S&P500 gained 28 at 1946. But today in futures trading the S&P500 futures are down around six points and the Dow Jones is down 58. The tech heavy Nasdaq index is up 67 points at 4571. In London the blue chip benchmark FTSE100 is trading 42 points lower. Alistair McCaig at IG Index the spread better said: "Oil prices remain volatile with both WTI and Brent crude giving back much of the gains they saw during yesterday's session. "Although oil prices have made an effort to show some resilience since production talks were held last week the unavoidable truth remains that production is still at record high levels and no nation has actually agreed to cut production." In corporate news Valeant Pharmaceuticals (NYSE: VRX) saw shares plunge overnight as it announced it will have to restate financial results from 2014 and 2015 after around US$58 million in revenue was improperly recorded in 2014 and should have been reported last year.
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