(New York) The New York Stock Exchange was trading in disarray on Thursday for the last session of November, its best month of the year, partly reassured by inflation which confirms its slowdown in the United States.
The Dow Jones was up 0.66%, the NASDAQ was down 0.18% and the broader S&P 500 index was up 0.07% around 9:50 a.m. ET.
Inflation continued to slow in October in the United States, falling to 3.0% year-on-year, compared to 3.4% in September, according to the PCE index, the gauge favored by the Fed.
Over one month, prices remained stable in November (+0.0%), whereas they had increased by 0.4% the previous month. Excluding food and energy costs, prices increased over the month by 0.2% as expected.
As for consumer spending, its growth slowed to +0.2% compared to +0.7% the month before.
“The moderate rise in consumption and further decline in inflation reinforces the markets’ growing belief that interest rate cuts are on the horizon,” commented Andrew Hunter, economist at Capital Economics.
“Overall, growth will slow down, but remain positive and inflation will decline, which is a positive development for the Central Bank (Fed),” said Rubeela Farooqi, economist for HFE.
“We expect the Fed’s next action to be a rate cut, likely by the middle of next year,” she added.
Patrick O’Hare of Briefing.com notes for his part that underlying inflation over one year remains at 3.5% “well above the Fed’s 2% target”. Inflation is “moving in the right direction fortunately, but not in a way that suggests the Fed will cut rates anytime soon.”
Bond rates also rose slightly to 4.33% for ten-year bonds, compared to 4.25% the day before, which was the lowest in two and a half months.
On the stock side, Salesforce, the customer relations software giant, significantly raised its profit forecasts for the fourth quarter, which boosted the stock (+9.06%).
The same goes for cloud storage firm Snowflake, whose shares jumped almost 8% after publishing solid quarterly figures.
The car manufacturer Ford lost 1% after recognizing that the six-week strike cost it $1.7 billion, more than its rival GM (+2.22%).
General Motors shares further benefited from the announcement the day before of a $10 billion share buyback plan and a dividend increase.
Shares of biotech ImmunoGen soared 80% to $29 while the company specializing in cancer treatment will be bought by AbbVie laboratories for $10.1 billion, or more than $31 per share. AbbVie stock remained stable.
Tesla lost 1.36% to $240.80. Elon Musk’s group presents its first electric pick-up, the Cybertruck, on Thursday.
Furthermore, Elon Musk made headlines the day before when he castigated advertisers who could “kill” his social network “X” by boycotting the platform to protest against a controversial tweet from his boss.