Statues adorn the facade of the New York Stock Exchange, Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2022, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson, File)
Wall Street was quiet early Wednesday following a lackluster session a day earlier as markets await U.S. inflation data and high-profile corporate earnings reports later in the week.
Futures for the S&P 500 were essentially flat before the bell, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average inched down less than 0.1%.
The U.S. government will give its latest monthly update on inflation at the consumer level on Thursday. That is one of the measures the Federal Reserve relies on in deciding on its interest rate policy.
On Friday, several big companies will begin reporting their results for the final three months of 2023, including Delta Air Lines, UnitedHealth Group, and a handful of big banks.
In Europe at midday, Germany’s DAX and the CAC 40 in Paris were flat, while Britain’s FTSE 100 slipped 0.3%.
Tokyo’s benchmark hit its highest level since March 1990 as a weaker yen lifted stock prices of export manufacturers.
The Nikkei 225 gained 2.1% to 34,465.00, helped by heavy buying of chipmakers and by speculation that the Bank of Japan may not opt to change its ultra-lax monetary policy as soon as thought after wages fell for a 20th straight month in November.
A weakening of the yen against the U.S. dollar also lifted share prices of export manufacturers like computer chip maker Kyocera Corp., which jumped 5.7%. Sony Group Corp. was up 3.8% and robot-maker Fanuc Corp. advanced 2.8%.
The Japanese benchmark is trading at levels last seen more than three decades ago, before the implosion of its “bubble economy,” when prices of property and other assets soared to stratospheric levels.
The U.S. dollar rose to 145.24 Japanese yen Wednesday from 144.48 yen. It had dipped in the past week on expectations the Bank of Japan might be poised to shift gears after years of keeping its benchmark interest rate at minus 0.1%.
Elsewhere in Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slipped 0.6% to 16,097.28, and the Shanghai Composite index lost 0.5% to 2,877.70.
South Korea’s Kospi shed 0.8% to 2,541.98, after the country’s unemployment rate stood at the highest since January 2022, according to Statistics Korea.
The S&P/ASX 200 in Australia slipped 0.7% to 7,468.50.
In other trading Wednesday, a barrel of benchmark U.S. crude oil picked up 34 cents to $72.63 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, the international standard, gained 26 cents to $77.85.
The euro rose to $1.0945 from $1.0931.
On Tuesday, the S&P 500 slipped 0.1% following its best day in nearly two months. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.4% and the Nasdaq composite rose 0.1%.
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
William Falcon, CEO and Founder of Lightning AI, discusses the ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, and how everyday people can use AI in their lives.
