NEW YORK, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) — U.S. stocks ended mixed on Friday as Wall Street tempered expectations for near-term interest rate cuts following a week of economic data.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 34.86 points, or 0.08 percent, to 44,946.12, notching an intraday record high before easing. The S&P 500 fell 18.74 points, or 0.29 percent, to 6,449.80, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 87.69 points, or 0.4 percent, to 21,622.98.
Seven of the 11 major S&P 500 sectors finished lower, with financials and technology leading declines, down 1.12 percent and 0.75 percent, respectively. Health care and real estate outperformed, rising 1.65 percent and 0.68 percent.
The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index dropped to 58.6 in August from 61.7 in July, reflecting renewed inflation concerns. Meanwhile, consumers’ year-ahead inflation expectations rose from 4.5 percent in July to 4.9 percent in August.
U.S. consumers continue to expect both inflation and unemployment to deteriorate in the future, though they are no longer bracing for the worst-case scenario for the economy feared in April, according to Joanne Hsu, director of the University of Michigan’s monthly Surveys of Consumers.
U.S. retail sales for July rose 0.5 percent and core retail sales climbed 0.3 percent, matching forecasts, according to data issued on Friday.
Markets were also watching developments from a face-to-face meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, which investors hoped might pave the way for progress to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict and influence the outlook for crude oil prices.
UnitedHealth surged almost 12 percent on Friday after a filing revealed Berkshire Hathaway took a roughly 1.6 billion U.S. dollars stake last quarter. Tesla slid 1.5 percent, while Apple and Microsoft also retreated. Alphabet gained about 0.5 percent, and Meta Platforms and Amazon edged higher. Nvidia and Broadcom fell 0.86 percent and 1.57 percent, respectively.
“The AI boom and the required Fed rate cuts are supporting the market, so we don’t think we’ll have a tradable pullback in the S&P, despite the horrible seasonality of August and September,” said Jay Hatfield, CEO and CIO at Infrastructure Capital Advisors. “We’re actually kind of grinding higher still.”
