Most stocks slipped on Wall Street Tuesday, but the market hung near its highest level in 20 months following a mixed set of reports on the economy.
- The S&P 500 fell 2.60 points, or 0.1%, to 4,567.18.
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 79.88 points, or 0.2%, to 36,124.56.
- The Nasdaq composite rose 44.42 points, or 0.3%, to 14,229.91.
KeyCorp fell led a slump for bank stocks after cutting its forecast for earnings from fees and other non-interest income. Gains for Apple and Microsoft helped to limit the market's losses. Treasury yields fell following data that kept alive questions about whether the US economy can pull off a perfect landing where it kills high inflation but avoids a recession.
Reports showed that employers advertised far fewer job openings at the end of October than expected, while growth for services businesses accelerated more last month than expected, the AP reports. Tuesday's report showed that employers advertised just 8.7 million jobs on the last day of October, down by 617,000 from a month earlier. It's the lowest level since 2021, and the "data support our view that rates are at a peak and the Fed's next move will be a rate cut" in the spring of 2024, said Rubeela Farooqi, chief US economist at High Frequency Economics.
Hope has been rising on Wall Street recently that the U.S. economy is slowing from its recently hot pace by just the right amount. Too much strength in the economy would give inflation more fuel, but too little would mean a recession. A separate report said that activity for US services industries expanded for the 41st time in the last 42 months, with growth reported by everything from agriculture to wholesale trade. Strength there has been offsetting weakness in manufacturing.
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Lower Treasury yields have been one reason prices for cryptocurrencies have been rising recently. The surge in interest helped Robinhood Markets report a roughly 75% jump in trading volumes for crypto during November from a month earlier. It also said customers added about $1.4 billion in net deposits during the month. Its own stock rose 10.3%. Tuesday. On the losing end was Take-Two Interactive, which slipped 0.5% after a trailer for its highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto VI video game said it's coming in 2025. That was later than some analysts expected.
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