The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq made a slight recovery on Friday as Treasury yields retreated from multi-year highs, while shares of Ford jumped on news of progress in labor talks with workers’ union.
Ford Motor advanced 2.5% after Reuters reported the United Auto Workers (UAW) was set to announce progress in labor contract talks with the carmaker.
Consumer discretionary, which houses the automaker, added 0.4%.
U.S. Treasury yields pulled back after surging to fresh highs on Thursday, driving a rebound in some growth stocks including Apple, Amazon.com, Nvidia and Tesla, up between 0.2% and 2.7%.
Worries over another interest rate hike in 2023 and prospects of a delay in the easing of monetary policy had knocked down the three main indexes by more than 1% on Thursday.
Despite the slight recovery, the benchmark S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq were on track for their worst week since March after the U.S. central bank delivered a hawkish pause on Wednesday, dampening hopes for policy easing before 2025.
“I don’t think that the markets have fully thought through the economic impact of higher rates,” said Jason Pride, chief of investment strategy and research at Glenmede in Philadelphia.
“Higher rates mean higher cost of borrowing for everybody and should affect the marginal decisions to spend or grow businesses or employ people which should have a negative impact on the economy.”
Traders’ bets on the benchmark rate remaining unchanged in November and December stood at 73% and 58%, respectively, according to CME’s FedWatch tool.
Data on Friday revealed U.S. business activity showed little change in September, with the vast services sector essentially idling at the slowest pace since February.
Several Fed policymakers, including policy voting member Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari, are set to speak during the day.
At 9:51 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 18.46 points, or 0.05%, at 34,051.96, the S&P 500 was up 8.75 points, or 0.20%, at 4,338.75, and the Nasdaq Composite was up 56.87 points, or 0.43%, at 13,280.86.
Activision Blizzard added 1.8% after Britain’s antitrust regulator said the restructured $69 billion acquisition of the company by Microsoft “opens the door” to the biggest-ever gaming deal being cleared.
U.S.-listed shares of Chinese firms including PDD Holdings, JD.com, Li Auto and Baidu rose between 2.2% and 4.1% on hopes of a rebound in economic growth, while Alibaba gained 4.3% on report the company’s logistics arm Cainiao was planning to file for a Hong Kong IPO as soon as next week.
Wayfair rose 2.3% after Bernstein upgraded the online furniture retailer to “market perform” from “underperform”, while Charter Communications gained 0.7% after Wells Fargo upgraded the cable company to “overweight” from “equal weight”.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 2.11-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and by a 1.44-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded one new 52-week high and 26 new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 14 new highs and 102 new lows.
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