US benchmark equity indexes showed little movement during intraday trading as investors stayed cautious ahead of the consumer inflation report for November, set to be released on Wednesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average remained virtually unchanged at 44,409.6, while the S&P 500 mirrored this trend with a slight dip to 6,053.3 around midday.
The Nasdaq Composite saw a modest gain of 0.2%, reaching 19,765.7. Notably, the communication services sector led the day with an increase of 2.5%, whereas real estate faced the largest decline. Government forecasts suggest that consumer inflation is likely to have risen by 0.3% month-on-month and 2.7% year-on-year last month.
This follows an increase of 0.2% month-on-month and 2.6% year-on-year in the consumer price index reported in October. In addition, the producer prices report for November is slated for release on Thursday, where market participants will analyze the implications on economic growth and inflation. In bond markets, the US 10-year Treasury yield rose by 3.3 basis points to 4.23%, while the two-year rate increased by 2.8 basis points to 4.16% during the same trading period. From a broader economic perspective, the National Federation of Independent Business reported an eight-point increase in the small-business optimism index for November, reaching 101.7, which is the highest level since June 2021.
"The election results signal a major shift in economic policy, leading to a surge in optimism among small business owners," commented NFIB Chief Economist Bill Dunkelberg. In corporate news, Walgreens Boots Alliance is reportedly in discussions with private-equity firm Sycamore Partners for a potential acquisition, as stated by The Wall Street Journal, leading to a nearly 20% jump in Walgreens shares, marking it as the best performer on the S&P 500. Similarly, Alaska Air Group shares soared by 12% after the parent company of Alaska Airlines raised its fourth-quarter earnings guidance and detailed an ambitious long-term strategic plan targeting an additional $1 billion in profit. On the downside, Oracle shares experienced a decline of 7.8%, the steepest drop on the S&P 500, due to fiscal second-quarter results falling short of Wall Street expectations as gains in cloud operations were offset by declines in hardware and services. In the tech sector, MongoDB emerged as the underperformer on the Nasdaq, down 16% intraday.
Despite raising its full-year outlook and reporting strong fiscal third-quarter results on Monday, concerns over a predicted slowdown in consumption for its Atlas cloud platform weighed heavily on its stock. In commodities, West Texas Intermediate crude oil traded slightly higher at $68.72 a barrel, a 0.5% rise.
Gold also gained, climbing 1.2% to $2,718.20 per troy ounce, while silver increased by 0.4% to $32.74 per ounce..