Traders work the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York City on May 31, 2023.
Spencer Platt | Getty Images
The S&P 500 edged lower on Friday and was on pace to record another losing week as investors weighed crosscurrents within corporate earnings and inflation data.
The broad index shed 0.1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 93 points, or 0.3%, helped by advances of more than 1.5% in Merck & Co. and Chevron. The Nasdaq Composite slid 0.5%, pulled down by a sell-off in semiconductor stocks such as Advanced Micro Devices, Nvidia and Micron.
The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq are bound for declines of 0.3% and 1.9%, respectively, on the week. Both are on pace for their second straight losing week — a first of that length for the technology-heavy Nasdaq since the conclusion of a four-week losing streak in December 2022.
The Dow is an outlier of the three major averages, on track for a 0.6% gain this week.
Investors had much to celebrate earlier in the week.
July’s consumer price index, a major inflation reading for markets and the Federal Reserve, came in softer than anticipated on a year-over-year basis. Prices climbed 3.2% on an annual basis, less than the consensus estimate of 3.3%.
To be sure, the CPI reading showed some signs of stickiness. So-called core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy costs, rose 4.7% from the prior year.
Elsewhere, Disney rallied on the back of its earnings report released Wednesday. Shares are up more than 3% on the week despite a pullback in Friday’s session. That puts the entertainment giant’s stock on track to see its best week since March.
But inflation data released Friday complicated the picture. July’s producer price index, which tracks the price wholesalers pay for raw goods, rose 0.3% from the previous month. Economists polled by Dow Jones expected a 0.2% increase month over month.
This week’s moves come as the latest in what’s recently been a rocky patch for the stock market after a strong performance in the first half of the year. The three major indexes are all lower than where they began August.
“Investors continue to try to hang their hat on more consistency” within economic data, said Greg Bassuk, CEO of AXS Investments. “What we’re seeing with these mixed results certainly increases the likelihood of more volatility ahead.”
