WALL Street stocks ended mixed on Friday (Nov 14) as investors looked ahead to Nvidia’s quarterly results next week and worried that the Federal Reserve may hold off on cutting US interest rates in December.
The Nasdaq ended higher and the S&P 500 finished marginally weaker after an early selloff that dragged all three major Wall Street indexes down more than 1 per cent.
Investors in recent days have fretted about the pace of rate cuts and pricey valuations of heavyweight artificial intelligence stocks that have fueled much of the US stock market’s gains in recent years.
Nvidia, Palantir and Microsoft each gained more than 1 per cent.
Expectations the Fed will cut rates at its December policy meeting have faded in recent days amid signs of persistent inflation, caused in part by US President Donald Trump’s global tariffs. The probability of a 25-basis-point rate cut in December has fallen to under 50 per cent from 67 per cent last week, according to CME Group’s FedWatch tool.
Kansas City Fed President Jeffrey Schmid said on Friday his concerns about “too hot” inflation go well beyond the narrow effects of tariffs, signalling that he could dissent again at the Fed’s December meeting should policymakers opt to cut short-term borrowing costs. He was one of two dissenters in the Fed’s October decision to lower the policy rate by a quarter of a percentage point.
Artificial intelligence chipmaker Nvidia will be at the center of Wall Street’s attention when it reports quarterly results on Wednesday, with investors eager for fresh evidence that a race to dominate the emerging technology is not losing steam.
“We’ve got a huge event next week with Nvidia,” said Mike Dickson, head of research and quantitative strategies at Horizon Investments in Charlotte, North Carolina. “If Nvidia disappoints, they will be punished. But I also think that – kind of like you’re seeing today – you’ll see dip buyers come back in pretty quickly and stabilize things.”
UnitedHealth Group declined 3.2 per cent and Visa lost 1.8 per cent, both weighing on the Dow.
The S&P 500 fell 0.05 per cent to end at 6,734.11 points.
The Nasdaq gained 0.1 per cent to 22,900.59 points, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.7 per cent to 47,147.48 points.
Seven of the 11 S&P 500 sector indexes declined, led lower by materials, down 1.2 per cent, followed by a 1 per cent loss in financials.
For the week, the S&P 500 rose 0.1 per cent, the Dow added 0.3 per cent and the Nasdaq lost 0.5 per cent.
Concerns about the labor market’s health and the inflation outlook have weighed on investors, who expect some permanent gaps in official economic data even after the record-long US government shutdown ended on Thursday.
In global trade, the Swiss government said US tariffs on Swiss goods will be reduced to 15 per cent from 39 per cent. Warner Bros Discovery gained 4 per cent after the entertainment company said it had amended CEO David Zaslav’s employment agreement amid a strategic review of its business. Cidara Therapeutics shares more than doubled after Merck said it will acquire the company in an almost US$9.2 billion deal
Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones within the S&P 500 by a 1.7-to-one ratio.
The S&P 500 posted 12 new highs and 10 new lows; the Nasdaq recorded 52 new highs and 295 new lows.
Volume on US exchanges was 20.1 billion shares, just below the average of 20.2 billion shares over the previous 20 sessions. REUTERS
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