Wall Street’s main stock indexes were little changed in afternoon trading Thursday ahead of a key report on inflation.
The S&P 500 fell less than 0.1%, with gainers and losers among the benchmark index’s constituents split between gainers and losers. The index remains near the all-time high it hit last week.
The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.3%, just off its all-time high, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 19 points, or 0.1%, as of 3:18 p.m. Eastern time.
Walgreens strengthens partnership The company plunged 24.5%, the biggest drop in the S&P 500 index, after reporting weaker-than-expected earnings, lowered its outlook and said it could close hundreds more stores over the next three years.
Jeans maker Levi Strauss & Co. saw its shares fall 16.1% after its latest quarterly sales and full-year profit outlook fell short of analysts’ expectations.
Spice maker McCormick Inc. rose 3.8 percent, the market’s biggest gainer, after beating analysts’ profit estimates.
Shares of chipmaker Micron Technology Inc. fell 5.7% after its latest outlook disappointed investors.
In the bond market, government bond yields fell. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 4.29% from 4.33% at Wednesday’s close. The yield on the two-year note fell to 4.72% from 4.75%.
According to the latest information from the government The American economy expanded Growth in the January-March quarter was at an annualized rate of 1.4%, a slight revision from the previous forecast of 1.3%, and the slowest quarterly growth rate since spring 2022.
The report also confirms data from previous economic reports showing consumers feeling pressured by persistent inflation and high interest rates. The report found that consumer spending, which has driven economic growth, grew just 1.5% from an earlier forecast of 2%.
“The economy remained strong in the first quarter, but growing consumer caution slowed private sector demand growth,” EY chief economist Gregory Daco said in the report’s main conclusion.
A slowdown in consumer spending could help ease inflation further, but too much of a slowdown could deal an even bigger blow to the economy. The Fed is trying to time its efforts to bring inflation back up to its 2% target without slowing the economy enough to tip it into a recession.
Stocks have been sluggish all week ahead of the next big inflation report on Friday, when the government will release the latest personal consumption expenditures (PCE) index, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge.
In the report, economists expect inflation to ease modestly to 2.6% in May, following 2.7% in April, below the PCE peak of 7.1% in mid-2022. Other inflation measures, including the Consumer Price Index, have also eased significantly over the past two years.
For the latest information on inflation, Central Bank Decision The debate over when to start cutting interest rates has reverberated around the world as central banks remain at their highest levels in more than two decades. Wall Street expects central banks to start cutting interest rates when they meet in September.
