Stocks waver on Wall Street; big tech firms weigh on indexes
By DAMIAN J. TROISE
AP Business Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks wavered in morning trading on Wall Street Monday as markets cool down following their biggest weekly gain since the summer.
The S&P 500 fell 0.1% as of 10:25 a.m. Eastern. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 58 points, or 0.2%, to 33,805 and the Nasdaq fell 0.6%.
Trading remained uncertain. The benchmark S&P 500 index had more gainers than losers, but was weighed down by technology stocks, which helped lead the market higher last week. Microsoft fell 2.4% and Apple fell 1.2%.
Bond yields rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury, which influences mortgage rates, rose to 3.87% from 3.81% late Thursday. Bond markets were closed on Friday for Veterans Day.
U.S. crude oil prices fell 1.1%.
Crytpo-related stocks remained unstable following the implosion last week of FTX, a major crypto trading exchange. Coinbase, another crypto exchange platform, was off 7.6%.
Investors are anticipating more data this week that could give them a better picture on whether the hottest inflation in decades is easing and how consumers are handling high prices.
On Tuesday, the government issues its October report on prices at the wholesale level, which analysts forecast to have retreated slightly to 8.3% year-over-year from September’s 8.5%. That comes on the heels of last week’s report on consumer prices showing that inflation eased more than economists anticipated in October.
Investors are hoping that more data showing inflation easing means the Federal Reserve can be less aggressive about raising interest rates to get it under control. Economists expect the Fed to raise its benchmark lending rate in December, but by only a half a percentage point following four hikes of 0.75 percentage points, three times the usual margin.
Wall Street will also receive an important update on consumer spending on Wednesday with the government’s retail sales report for October.
Several big retailers are reporting their latest financial results this week. Home Depot and Walmart report earnings on Tuesday. Target reports its results on Wednesday and Macy’s reports results on Thursday.
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Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed to this report.
