Stock market today: Honda-Nissan merger talks shake up otherwise quiet morning on Wall Street
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks edged lower in morning trading on Wall Street Monday at the start of a holiday-shortened week.
The S&P 500 fell 0.2%. A handful of technology companies helped cushion the widespread losses. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 308 points, or 0.7% as of 10:59 a.m. Eastern time. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite was mostly unchanged.
Semiconductor giant Nvidia, whose enormous valuation gives it an outsize influence on indexes, rose 1.2%. Broadcom jumped 3.8% to also help support the broader market.
Japanese automakers Honda Motor and Nissan said they are talking about combining in a deal that might also include Mitsubishi Motors. Honda rose 3.8% and Nissan rose 1.6% in Tokyo.
Eli Lilly rose 2% after announcing that regulators approved Zepbound as the first and only prescription medicine for adults with sleep apnea.
Department store Nordstrom fell 1.3% after it agreed to be acquired and taken private by Nordstrom family members and a Mexican retail group in a $6.25 billion deal.
Business group The Conference Board said that consumer confidence slipped in December. Its consumer confidence index fell back to 104.7 from 112.8 in November. Wall Street was expecting a reading of 113.8.
The unexpectedly weak consumer confidence update follows several generally strong economic reports last week. One report showed the overall economy grew at a 3.1% annualized rate during the summer, faster than earlier thought. The latest report on unemployment benefit applications showed that the job market remains solid.
A report on Friday said a measure of inflation the Federal Reserve likes to use was slightly lower last month than economists expected. Worries about inflation edging higher again had been weighing on Wall Street and the Fed. The central bank has signaled that it could deliver fewer cuts to interest rates next year than it earlier expected because of concerns over inflation.
The central bank just delivered its third cut to interest rates this year, but inflation has been hovering stubbornly above its target of 2%. Expectations for more interest rate cuts have helped drive a 24% gain for the S&P 500 in 2024. That drive included 57 all-time highs this year.
Treasury yields edged higher in the bond market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.56% from 4.53% late Friday.
European markets were mostly lower, while markets in Asia gained ground.
Wall Street has several other economic reports to look forward to this week. On Tuesday, the U.S. will release its November report for sales of newly constructed homes. A weekly update on unemployment benefits is expected on Thursday.
Markets in the U.S. will close early on Tuesday for Christmas Eve and will remain closed on Wednesday for Christmas.