NEW YORK (dpa-AFX) – The US stock exchanges showed no direction in early trading on Friday. A very weak outlook from the chip giant Intel only had a short-term impact. The economic data of the day did not point the way either. Rather, investors are more likely to wait for the US Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision due on Wednesday.
The Dow Jones Industrial (Dow Jones 30 Industrial) recently fell 0.20 percent to 33,880.89 points in early business. The Wall Street index would have largely ironed out the losses from the week before. The market-wide S&P 500 lost 0.16 percent on Friday to 4054.00 points. The tech-heavy NASDAQ 100 was up 0.10 percent to 12,063.05, down from mid-December levels.
According to data from the Department of Commerce, which came in as expected, incomes in the world’s largest economy rose slightly in December, while consumer spending fell slightly. At the same time, high inflation continues to recede. As a result, Ian Shepherdson, economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, expects spending to continue to recover in January but expects the first quarter to be weak overall.
This assessment was underpinned by the consumer climate data for January published by the University of Michigan shortly after the start of trading. According to a second estimate, they turned out slightly better than expected. There was also strong data from the housing market.
All in all, according to stockbrokers, it is still expected that the Fed will slow down its rate hikes next Wednesday. After several sharp increases of 0.75 percentage points in the past year and a step of 0.5 points in December, an interest rate hike of 0.25 points is expected.
On the corporate side, Intel (Intel) stock recovered slightly from its double-digit percentage loss at the start of trading. It recently fell by 7.3 percent as the bottom of the Dow and Nasdaq 100. The processor manufacturer not only disappointed with a weak final quarter of 2022, but also gave a gloomy forecast for the current first quarter.
A few companies in the sector suffered, while others disappointed investors. For example, the semiconductor equipment supplier KLA (KLA-Tencor) fell short of expert expectations with its sales forecast for the third business quarter. The papers fell by 4.9 percent, but had risen to their highest level in more than a year the day before after a longer price rally.
Chevron’s shares, which had risen sharply the previous day in view of an announced billion-dollar share buyback, now lost 3.6 percent after Intel, which was second to last in the Dow. The oil and gas company had disappointed with its profit in the final quarter of 2022.
The top of the index was taken by American Express with a plus of 10 percent, followed by Visa with a plus of 2.6 percent. The credit card provider Visa convinced with increased profits and revenues. Competitor AmEx was particularly convincing with its strong outlook./ck/nas