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Why Wall Street stayed mute on Thursday after its best day since November
U.S. stocks ended the day little changed, taking a breather after the major stock indexes posted the largest daily percentage gain since Nov. 6 on Wednesday amid cooling inflation and strong bank earnings.
Investors mostly shrugged off a weaker-than-expected gain in December retail sales and a higher-than-expected jump in weekly unemployment claims.
The Commerce Department said December retail sales rose 0.4%, smaller than Reuters' average economist forecast for a 0.6% jump, while weekly jobless claims rose 14,000 to a seasonally adjusted 217,000. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 210,000 claims for the latest week.
The broad S&P 500 index closed down 0.21% at 5,937.34; the blue-chip Dow shed 0.16% dropping to 43,153.13; and the tech-laden Nasdaq fell 0.89% to 19,338.29.
The benchmark 10-year yield eased to 4.615% after Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller and Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said they could see more rate cuts this year.
After Friday's blowout jobs report , economists began paring back expectations for rate cuts this year. Bank of America had predicted the rate-cutting cycle was over and risks now were for a rate hike.
Banks rise again on earnings
Bank shares continued to gain as more strong earnings reports roll in.
Bank of America and Morgan Stanley each reported fourth-quarter results that topped analysts' forecast with help from their respective investment banking units. Those came on the heels of strong quarterly results reports on Wednesday from JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and Citigroup.
Banks' strong earnings reports, for now, are providing optimism "about the ability of companies and the U.S. economy to adapt to a higher interest rate environment," said Samer Hasn, senior market analyst at global broker XS.com.
Other stocks to watch
Trump's Treasury pick
Scott Bessent, President-elect Donald Trump's pick for Treasury secretary, was grilled by the Senate. He supported tariffs, tax cuts, more sanctions on Russian oil and Federal Reserve independence on policy-making.
He also said he didn't see a need for a central bank digital dollar, preferring the U.S. dollar.
Bitcoin hurdles milestone
Bitcoin jumped above the key $100,000 milestone on reports Trump is considering a crypto reserve but slipped into negative territory by the end of the day.
Originally, Trump had discussed a bitcoin strategic reserve but reports say that may have widened now to include other cryptocurrencues like Solana and XRP.
Bitcoin was down 0.25% to $100,184.70 at the time the trading day ended.
(This story was updated with new information.)
Medora Lee is a money, markets, and personal finance reporter at USA TODAY. You can reach her at mjlee@usatoday.com and subscribe to our free Daily Money newsletter for personal finance tips and business news every Monday through Friday morning.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: All eyes on earnings with stock market muted after best day in months