The DOW JONES index rose 0.49% to 48,085.83 points, once again approaching its November highs. The most bullish value is Salesforce, which is up just over 5.5%, while Amgen is down 1.14%
The S&P 500 advanced 0.48% to 6,890.37 points, while the Nasdaq rose 0.59% to 23,643.78 points.
Wall Street is coming off a mixed day yesterday, Thursday, in which the DOW JONES ended up closing with a slight decrease of 0.07%. The S&P 500 also rose a scant 0.11%, while the technology Nasdaq added 0.22%, supported by the advances of stocks such as NVIDIA and Meta Platforms. The Nasdaq has managed to rise in eight of the last nine days, making up for the time lost during much of November.
The three major indices are on track to close the week with slight gains. Through Thursday’s close, the S&P 500 is up 0.1%, while the Nasdaq and the DOW JONES are up almost 0.6% and 0.3%, respectively.
Today all eyes are on him consumer expenditure price index (PCE) in September, which should have been known more than a month ago but was delayed by the federal government shutdown. The data has met the forecasts: The interannual growth rate of the general PCE has risen one tenth in the month, up to 2.8% (2.7% in August). The underlying rate has fallen slightly, also to 2.8% (2.9% in August).
“If the readings are in line or are somewhat lower than expected by analysts, the stock markets will receive them favorably, since this would consolidate the hypothesis that the Fed will lower its rates next week,” Juan J. Fernández-Figares, of Link Gestión, had warned.
For now, investors seem to be assuming that there will be a rate cut at the Federal Reserve meeting on December 9-10. According to CME Group’s Fedwatch tool, traders give a probability of 87.1% to a cut of 25 percentage pointswhile the probabilities of them remaining in the current range, between 3.75% and 4.0%, are 12.9%.
Today it has also been known University of Michigan consumer confidence index, which climbs to 53.3 in Decemberabove the reading of 52 that analysts had expected. In November it had been 51. During the week, Wall Street has seen several employment references that have emphasized the weakness of the labor market, but the November report prepared by the Department of Labor will not be known until after the Fed meeting.
Among the leading values of the day, Netflix has reached an agreement to buy Warner Bros. Discovery for $27.75 per share. The price represents a premium of 13% compared to the close yesterday Thursday ($24.54) of the shares of the company behind HBO Max. The total equity value of the deal is $72 billion, while the enterprise value of the deal is about $82.7 billion.
The deal includes the film studio and streaming service, HBO Max. Warner Bros. Discovery will spin off its television networks, which include TNT and CNN, as previously planned. The acquisition is expected to close following this separation, scheduled for the third quarter of 2026. Netflix shares fell more than 4% at the opening after this agreement, while Warner Bros. rose 3.8%. Paramount Skydance, which also bid for the historic studio, fell 5.5%.
Victoria’s Secret soars 11% on Wall Street. The lingerie company has reported a narrower-than-expected quarterly loss and a 9% rise in net sales, while raising its full-year outlook, saying it is “well positioned for a successful holiday season.”
Ulta Beauty posted increases of 10% in the New York morning after exceeding expectations with its third quarter report and also raising forecasts for the year as a whole. Beauty retailer forecasts annual revenue of $12.3 billionhigher than the previous forecast of between 12,000 and 12,100 million dollars and the consensus estimate of 12,130 million dollars. Comparable sales growth for the year will be between 4.4% and 4.7%, compared to the previous estimate of 2.5% to 3.5%.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise falls nearly 7% after falling short of Wall Street’s fourth-quarter revenue expectations. Hewlett Packard Enterprise posted revenue of $9.68 billion for the period, below the $9.94 billion expected by analysts. Earnings for the quarter exceeded expectations.
We will also have to pay attention to the NVIDIA price after today Moore Threads Technologythe Chinese manufacturer of graphics processing units (GPU) founded in 2020 by a former Nvidia employee, has soared 425% in its debut on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
NVIDIA has also seen how companies like Alphabet try to gain ground in the field of artificial intelligence chips.
In commodity markets, oil prices are moving lower with one eye on next week’s Fed meeting, and the other on peace talks over Ukraine, which do not appear to be moving forward. US West Texas oil futures fell 0.18% to $59.56 per barrel, while international benchmark Brent crude fell a slight 0.08% to $63.21.
The euro rises 0.07% in its exchange against the dollar, which remains at 1.1654 dollars for each single currency.