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%.
Europeans upset with Elon Musk still aren’t buying his electric cars, adding to a long losing streak for his company.
President Donald Trump has fired one of two Democratic members of the U.S. Surface Transportation Board to break a 2-2 tie ahead of the board considering the largest railroad merger ever proposed.
Ford is recalling more than 355,000 of its pickup trucks across the U.S. because of an instrument panel display failure that’s resulted in critical information, like warning lights and vehicle speed, not showing up on the dashboard.
Nvidia reported a 56% increase in second-quarter revenue and a 59% rise in net income compared to a year ago.
The Rev. Al Sharpton is set to lead a protest march on Wall Street to urge corporate America to resist the Trump administration’s campaign to roll back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The New York civil rights leader will join clergy, labor and community leaders Thursday in a demonstration through Manhattan’s Financial District that’s timed with the anniversary of the Civil Rights-era March on Washington in 1963. Sharpton called DEI the “civil rights fight of our generation." He and other Black leaders have called for boycotting American retailers that scaled backed policies and programs aimed at bolstering diversity and reducing discrimination in their ranks.
President Donald Trump's administration last month awarded a $1.2 billion contract to build and operate what's expected to become the nation’s largest immigration detention complex to a tiny Virginia firm with no experience running correction facilities.
Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos claims audiences don't want to watch Netflix movies in theaters, but that seems not to be the case recently.
Chipmaker Nvidia is poised to release a quarterly report that could provide a better sense of whether the stock market has been riding an overhyped artificial intelligence bubble or is being propelled by a technological boom that’s still gathering momentum.
Cracker Barrel said late Tuesday it’s returning to its old logo after critics — including President Donald Trump — protested the company’s plan to modernize.
Low-value imports are losing their duty-free status in the U.S. this week as part of President Donald Trump's agenda for making the nation less dependent on foreign goods. A widely used customs exemption for international shipments worth $800 or less is set to end starting on Friday. Trump already ended the “de minimis” rule for inexpensive items sent from China and Hong Kong, but having to pay import taxes on small parcels from everywhere else likely will be a big change for some small businesses and online shoppers. Purchases that previously entered the U.S. without needing to clear customs will be subject to the origin country’s tariff rate, which can range from 10% to 50%.
