Stocks were little changed in early trading on Wall Street Friday as U.S. markets reopened after the Thanksgiving holiday.
The S&P 500 was up less than 0.1% as of 10:22 a.m. Eastern. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 107 points and the Nasdaq composite dipped 0.2%. Markets will close early at 1 p.m. Eastern.
The major stock indexes are on pace to close out the holiday-shortened week with a fourth straight weekly gain.
Shares in big technology stocks were among the biggest laggards in early trading. Apple fell 0.9% and Nvidia was 1% lower. Google parent Alphabet was down 1%.
Those losses were kept in check by gains in health care, energy and other sectors. Eli Lilly & Co. rose 1.2% and Exxon Mobil added 1%.
Stocks on Wall Street have rallied in November following a three-month slide amid hope that inflation has cooled enough for the Federal Reserve to finally be done with its market-crunching hikes to interest rates.
Forecasts for a potential recession have been pushed further out into 2024 while also being softened. The rate of inflation continues to ease, consumer spending remains solid and the economy is generally humming along. That has encouraged hopes, and bets, that the Federal Reserve might even consider cutting rates.
Fed officials, though, have said the outlook for the economy remains uncertain and they’ll make upcoming decisions on rates based on incoming reports. The Fed will get another big update next week when the government releases its October report for a key inflation measure tracked by the central bank.
In the bond market, Treasury yields were broadly higher. The yield on the 10-year Treasury, which influences interest rates on mortgages and other loans, rose to 4.47% from 4.41% late Wednesday. The yield on the 2-year Treasury rose to 4.94% from 4.90% late Wednesday.
Oil prices, a key driver of inflation, continued to ease Friday, with U.S. crude sliding 0.3%. Oil prices have plunged in recent weeks amid worries about a mismatch between too much crude supply and too little demand.
Investors are watching to see how U.S. retailers will fare as the holiday shopping season kicks off with Black Friday, given growing concerns that spending may slow under pressure from dwindling savings, rising credit card debt and inflation.
The latest quarterly results from a string of retailers from Walmart to Best Buy to Saks Fifth Avenue suggested a weakening of consumer appetites for spending even as inflation eases and employment remains robust.
Shares were mixed in Europe and Asia.
Germany’s DAX was nearly unchanged, up 0.2%, while the CAC 40 in Paris edged up 0.2%. Britain’s FTSE 100 slipped 0.1%.
Japan reported its consumer inflation rose for the first time in four months, with big gains in food prices and hotel rates as tourism has soared. The consumer price index rose 3.3% in October from a year earlier, up from 3% in September in a trend contrary to the Bank of Japan’s forecasts for price pressures to abate toward the year’s end.
“Both the government and the BOJ will be concerned about higher-than-expected inflation,” Robert Carnell and Min Joo Kang of ING Economics said in a commentary. That will likely lead the central bank to adjust its extremely lax monetary policy in the new year, they said.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 added 0.5%.
In China, shares fell back after recent gains driven by expectations of more government support for debt-burdened property developers. Shares in Country Garden, one of the biggest, sank 7.6% after gaining 16% the day before.
In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng fell 2%, while the Shanghai Composite index lost 0.7%.
Elsewhere in Asia, South Korea’s Kospi declined 0.7%, while the S&P/ASX 200 in Australia gained 0.2%.
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AP Business Writer Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.