Wall St slips as holiday-thinned week begins
Business
Wall St slips as holiday-thinned week begins
(Reuters) - Wall Street's main indexes eased at the start of the holiday-shortened week on Monday as investors looked forward to key inflation data later this week, while advancing chip stocks kept losses on the tech-heavy Nasdaq in check.
The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (.SOX), opens new tab rose 0.5%, with Micron Technology (MU.O), opens new tab jumping 9.0% to a record high, while industry heavyweight Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab climbed 1.6%.
Over the weekend, a report stated that China had introduced guidelines to phase out U.S. microprocessors supplied by Intel (INTC.O), opens new tab and AMD (AMD.O), opens new tab from government personal computers and servers. Intel was down 1.2% while AMD, reversing earlier losses, was last up 1.4%.
Both the S&P 500 (.SPX), opens new tab and the Dow (.DJI), opens new tab logged their best weekly percentage gains so far this year on Friday, with the Fed sticking to its guidance of three interest-rate cuts this year.
Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee backed that claim and said he had penciled in three rate cuts for this year, while Fed Governor Lisa Cook said the central bank needs to proceed with caution as it decides when to start cutting interest rates.
Traders now see a nearly 71% chance of the Fed bringing in the first cut in June, according to the CME FedWatch tool, up from around 55% at the start of last week.
The crucial February reading of the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index, the Fed's preferred inflation gauge, is due on Friday, when U.S. markets will be shut for the Good Friday holiday.
A hot reading for the PCE index could dent market optimism around early rate cuts.
U.S. stocks ended mostly down on Friday, but the S&P 500 registered its biggest weekly percentage gain of 2024.
Final estimates for fourth-quarter GDP and a March consumer confidence reading are also due in the next few days and will round off the March quarter's last trading week.
"We tend to discount market moves within plus or minus one week of the end of a quarter, because a lot of institutional flows that you typically see are putting investment policy benchmarks back together," said Mike Dickson, head of research at Horizon Investments.
"That makes the price action this week probably a little less important than any other week that we've had this year."
At 11:38 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI), opens new tab was down 105.96 points, or 0.27%, at 39,369.94, the S&P 500 (.SPX), opens new tab was down 7.90 points, or 0.15%, at 5,226.28, and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC), opens new tab was down 18.32 points, or 0.11%, at 16,410.50.
Eight of the 11 major S&P 500 sectors were trading lower, with communication services (.SPLRCL), opens new tab leading losses, down 0.6%, while energy (.SPNY), opens new tab outpaced peers and was up 1.2%.
