Matteo Colombo
U.S. stocks were subdued while Treasury yields rose, as market participants returned from the Thanksgiving holiday to a truncated Black Friday trading session.
Equity markets will close at 1300 ET while bond markets will shut at 1400 ET.
Wall Street’s major averages were mixed amid small moves. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (COMP.IND) was lower by 0.16% to 14,243.08 points in mid-day trade, while the benchmark S&P 500 (SP500) was down 0.02% to 4,555.57 points. The blue-chip Dow (DJI) was up 0.18% to 35,335.08 points.
Of the 11 S&P sectors, nine were in positive territory, led by Energy. Communication Services and Technology were the two losers.
An ongoing bond sell-off in Europe put some pressure on the fixed-income markets at home. The longer-end 30-year yield (US30Y) was up 3 basis points to 4.61%, while the 10-year yield (US10Y) was up 7 basis points to 4.48%. The shorter-end more rate-sensitive 2-year yield (US2Y) was up 3 basis points to 4.96%.
See live data on how Treasury yields are doing across the curve at the Seeking Alpha bond page.
Friday’s economic calendar only had the S&P Global Flash U.S. Composite PMI on the docket, which showed that private sector employment in November fell for first time since June 2020.
“U.S. growth dynamics will be in focus next week … the key focus will be personal income and spending data as well as the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, the PCE, due Thursday, as consumer strength remains a key discussion point ahead of the December 13 Fed meeting,” Deutsche Bank’s Galina Pozdnyakova said.
The benchmark S&P 500 (SP500) was headed for its fourth straight weekly gain, its best such streak since early June. The advance has come amid a sustained rally largely driven by a general consensus that the Federal Reserve was done hiking rates. The positive sentiment has attracted the biggest inflows from retail investors to stocks since early 2022.
“Retail sentiment appeared buoyant following the strong market rally in November. Retail investors net bought +$4.8B of cash equities this past week, +2.3 standard deviations above the last 12M average and the highest weekly inflow recorded since April 2022,” JPMorgan’s Peng Cheng said.
“ETFs saw an inflow of $2.7B. Unlike the previous week, broad-based equity ETFs including S&P (SP500), Nasdaq (COMP.IND), and Russell (RTY) all saw below-average demand, potentially due to retail investors’ preference for single names,” Cheng added.
Among Friday’s active movers, iRobot (IRBT) surged nearly 40% on a report that Amazon’s (AMZN) planned $1.4B acquisition of the maker of robot vacuum cleaner Roomba was set for European approval.
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