Stocks were mixed in Friday afternoon trade, bouncing between small gains and losses, as investors parsed mixed data on the strength of the U.S. consumer. Investors were also monitoring the spread of COVID-19 in China, while corporate earnings season moved toward the home stretch.
What are major indexes doing?
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.38% was down 74 points, or 0.3%, at about 29,353, while the S&P 500 SPX, -0.12% was roughly flat at 3,373. The Nasdaq Composite COMP, -0.08% added 4 points to trade near 9,715, less than a 0.1% gain.
All three benchmark indexes touched all-time highs earlier in the week. For the week, the Dow looked likely to add 0.9%, the S&P 500 on track to advance 1.4%, and the Nasdaq to gain 2% for the period.
What’s driving the market?
Some cracks in what has been a seemingly impregnable segment of the U.S. economy — the U.S. consumer — in a record-setting 11th year of economic expansion has caused investors to second-guess a mostly bullish uptrend for stocks this week. Some seeds of doubt were sown on Friday after a report on January retail sales showed sluggish activity, underscored by a 3.1% drop in sales at clothing stores.
Retail sales rose 0.3% in January, the government said, matching the MarketWatch consensus forecast.
“The market’s resilience in the past couple of years has been predicated on the belief that the consumer will continue to do well—although retail data has been mixed in that regard,” said John Carey, director of equity income for the U.S. at Amundi Pioneer, in an interview with MarketWatch.
The weaker-than-expected report on retail sales comes even as a separate measure of consumer sentiment surged above expectations to touch a near 15-year high in a preliminary February reading.
“It’s something that could undermine the market as we move forward, if the consumer pulls back,” Carey said, adding that capital spending by companies has been sluggish, while data on car and home sales also have shown signs of having reaching a plateau.
In other data, import prices rose 0.2% during the month, according to a separate government report, and have gained 0.3% in the past 12 months. Meanwhile, industrial production marked its fourth decline in five months in January, the Federal Reserve said falling 0.3%, in line with Wall Street expectations. Separately, the Commerce Department said business inventories rose a scant 0.1% in December.
However, concerns about the viral outbreak in China linger. Chinese officials on Friday said 121 more people had died from COVID-19, the disease caused by a novel strain of coronavirus that emerged in Wuhan in late 2019, over the previous 24 hours, bringing the total to 1,383. The country’s National Health Commission reported 5,090 new confirmed cases in mainland China, bringing the total to 63,851. The number of new cases jumped sharply on Thursday after a change in the government’s counting method.
Analysts said the changes to the methodology were fueling doubts about the accuracy of China’s figures.
Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank President Loretta Mester said Friday that fallout from the coronavirus on China could spill over to the U.S., but that business investment should otherwise pick up later this year.
Which companies are in focus?
- Shares of Nvidia Corp. NVDA, +7.03% were up nearly 7.3% in early action after reporting late Thursday record quarterly data sales of $968 million. Opinion:Nvidia shocks Wall Street with surging data-center sales
- Roku Inc. ROKU, -6.42% shares were down 5.2%. The streaming-media company late Thursday delivered a better-than-expected earnings report and an upbeat forecast for the quarter and year ahead.
- Tesla Inc. TSLA, -0.46% shares were slightly lower a day after the company surprised investors by announcing plans to offer around $2 billion of common stock in an underwritten deal.
- Shares of Newmark Group Inc. NMRK, -3.10% were down 1.9% after an analyst downgrade.
- Canopy Growth Corp.’s U.S.-listed stock CGC, +16.59% WEED, +16.31% surged 16% after reporting a narrower-than-expected fiscal third-quarter loss.
- Drug wholesaler stocks fell after The Wall Street Journal reported that 21 states had rejected their offer for a settlement over their alleged roles in spurring the opioid crisis. McKesson Corporation MCK, -0.16% shares and AmerisourceBergen Corporation ABC, -0.37% shares were mostly flat.
- Shares of Newell Brands Inc. NWL, +3.71% were up 3.3% after it delivered fourth-quarter earnings Friday morning that topped Wall Street estimates.
What are other markets doing?
Oil continued to power higher. The price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude for March delivery CLH20, +1.23% gained 63 cents, or 1.2%, to settle at 52.05 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. WTI gained more than 3% this week, its first such gain in six weeks.
Gold for April delivery GCJ20, +0.42% rose 0.5% to settle at $1,586.40, notching a modest weekly gain on haven buying.
The U.S. dollar DXY, +0.06% was less than 0.1% higher against a basket of rival currencies.
In Europe, the Stoxx Europe 600 SXXP, -0.13% slipped 0.6% to end trade at 430.52.
In Asia overnight, the China CSI 300 000300, +0.70% rose 0.7% to close at 3,987.73, the Shanghai Composite SHCOMP, +0.38% ticked up 0.4% to 2,917.01, and the Hang Seng Index HSI, +0.31% closed 0.3% higher, at 27,815.60. The Nikkei 225 NIK, -0.59% lost 0.6% to 23,687.59.
The benchmark U.S. 10-year Treasury note TMUBMUSD10Y, -1.79% caught a bid, with the yield shedding 3.9 basis points to 1.578%. Bond yields fall when prices rise.
—William Watts contributed to this article
