Wall Street rises to the edge of its all-time high
NEW YORK AP The U S stock arena rose to the edge of its all-time high on Friday The S P added and finished just shy of its record closing level which was set in October It had briefly topped the mark during the day before paring its gain The Dow Jones Industrial Average added points or and the Nasdaq composite gained The modest moves capped a quiet week for Wall Street offering a respite following weeks of sharp and scary swings Ulta Beauty helped lead the industry and jumped after the retailer shared stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than expected CEO Kecia Steelman reported its customers are broadly feeling pressure but Ulta saw progress across its categories particularly in e-commerce It raised its forecast for revenue over the full year Another encouraging signal for the holiday shopping season came from Victoria s Secret Co It delivered a milder loss for the latest quarter than analysts expected and it likewise raised its forecast for sales over the full year Its stock rallied Warner Bros Discovery rose after Netflix disclosed it would buy Warner Bros for billion in cash and stock following its pending split from Discovery Global The deal for the company behind HBO Max Casablanca and Harry Potter is not a sure thing though It could raise fears at the U S establishment about too much industry power residing at Netflix Shares of Netflix fell Paramount Skydance which earlier had been seen as a front-runner to buy Warner Bros sank Also on the losing end of Wall Street was SoFi Technologies The financial innovation company fell to after saying it would add billion worth of its stock into the territory in order to raise cash It s selling the stock at a price of per share All notified the S P rose points to The Dow Jones Industrial Average added to and the Nasdaq composite gained to If the S P does return to a record it would mark the latest time the U S stock sector has powered past what seemed to be a debilitating set of worries The greater part lately those concerns centered on what the Federal Reserve will do with interest rates whether too a large number of dollars are flowing into artificial-intelligence system and if sharp drops for cryptocurrencies would bleed over into other markets After various back and forth the widespread expectation among traders is now that the Fed will cut its main interest rate next week in hopes of shoring up the slowing U S job territory If it does that would be the third cut of the year Investors love lower interest rates because they boost prices for investments and can juice the financial market The downside is that they can worsen inflation which is stubbornly remaining above the Fed s target Economic reports distributed on Friday did little to change expectations for a coming cut One revealed that an underlying measure of inflation that the Fed prefers to use was at in September exactly as economists expected A separate description stated U S consumers appear to be downgrading their expectations for inflation coming in the near future They re now forecasting inflation for the year ahead down from their forecast of last month according to the University of Michigan That s the lowest such forecast since January which is central because heightened expectations for inflation can create a vicious cycle that only worsens inflation In the bond field Treasury yields climbed The yield on the -year Treasury rose to from late Thursday In stock markets abroad indexes were mixed in Europe and Asia Germany s DAX returned and South Korea s Kospi jumped for two of the world s bigger gains Tokyo s Nikkei fell after figures demonstrated household spending in Japan fell in October from a year earlier It was the sharpest drop since January Japanese markets have been shaky in recent days after the Bank of Japan hinted that hikes to interest rates may be coming AP Writer Teresa Cerojano contributed Source
