Stock market today: Live updates

After notching a record close for five trading days in a row, the S&P 500 is on track to end the week up more than 1%.

The index’s gains have largely been led by the energy and communication services sectors, respectively up 4.6% and 4.1% on the week.

Just three sectors are on pace to close the week in the negative, including health care, real estate and consumer discretionary stocks. These sectors are respectively down 0.3%, 0.6% and 1.8%.

The biggest loser this week in the consumer discretionary sector has been Tesla. Shares have fallen nearly 14% this week since the electric vehicle maker reported weak fourth-quarter revenue and warned of slowing growth in 2024. In response, several firms have taken a more cautious view on the stock.

— Lisa Kailai Han

Pending home sales unexpectedly shot higher in December as lower mortgage rates helped lure buyers back into the market.

The National Association of Realtors on Friday reported that its index measuring sales not yet completed lurched ahead by 8.3% for the month, well ahead of the Dow Jones estimate for a 2% increase. On an annual basis, the index rose 1.3% after being down 5.2% in November.

“The housing market is off to a good start this year, as consumers benefit from falling mortgage rates and stable home prices,” said NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun. The 30-year mortgage rate stood at 6.69% as of Thursday, down from a 7.79% peak in late October, according to Freddie Mac.

—Jeff Cox

Nearly one out of every four companies in the S&P 500 have reported earnings thus far in the season. Many are surpassing Wall Street expectations.

About 24.7% of stocks in the S&P 500 have posted their quarterly financials, according to FactSet data from Friday shortly after the opening bell. Of those that have already reported, nearly 72% have beat consensus forecasts of analysts, data from the market analytics platform shows.

— Alex Harring

The three major indexes were lower as the final trading day of the week commenced.

The Dow and S&P 500 slipped about 0.1% each shortly after 9:30 a.m. ET. The Nasdaq Composite shed around 0.2%.

Despite the slides, the three indexes remain on track to finish the week higher.

— Alex Harring

Cryptocurrencies were up to finish the week as investors took some comfort in the idea that outflows from the Grayscale Bitcoin ETF (GBTC) could be starting to taper off.

Bitcoin climbed more than 3% to $40,989.80 according to Coin Metrics. At one point Friday morning it rose to as much as $41,658. It’s still down more than 1.5% for the week, however.

Ether was up by about 1% Friday, trading at $2,239.06. It’s on pace, however, to post a nearly 10% decline for the week and its worst week since Aug. 18.

Outsized ether moves tend to follow big bitcoin moves. After finishing 2023 up 90%, compared to bitcoin’s 157% gain, ether outperformed bitcoin in a bit of a catchup trade after the launch of ETFs earlier this month. This week as bitcoin dipped below $39,000 for the first time in seven weeks, ether suffered a much deeper cut.

— Tanaya Macheel

The core price consumptions expenditures index, the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation metric, rose 0.2% in December month over month, matching a Dow Jones estimate. Year over year, core PCE was up 2.9%, slightly less than the 3% forecast.

— Fred Imbert

These are the stocks making the biggest moves before the bell:

Read the full list of stocks on the move here.

— Samantha Subin

Norfolk Southern slipped more than 1% before the bell after the rail transporter’s earnings came in below Wall Street expectations.

The company earned $2.83 per share excluding items on a revenue of $3.07 billion in the fourth quarter. But analysts polled by LSEG had higher expectations, projecting EPS at $2.87 per share and revenue at $3.08 billion.

Shares are slightly above flat on the year.

— Alex Harring

Multiple executives eyed as potential successors to JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon had new or expanded jobs, the bank said Thursday.

Jennifer Piepszak and Marianne Lake are two bank leaders shifting their scopes. It’s unclear if there is now a frontrunner for the chief executive role or if Dimon is intending to leave in the near term.

— Hugh Son

With just one session left in the trading week, the three major indexes are poised to finish higher.

The Dow has added 0.5%, while the broad S&P 500 has climbed 1.1%. Despite relatively muted gains on Thursday, technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite has outperformed this week with a jump of 1.3%.

Both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq have advanced for the past six sessions. The S&P 500 has closed at a fresh high for the last five trading days, the longest streak of its kind since November 2021.

— Alex Harring

Shares of American Express popped more than 2% in the premarket even after the card issuer reported weaker-than-expected fourth-quarter results.

The company earned $2.62 per share on revenue of $15.8 billion. Analysts polled by LSEG expected a profit of $2.64 per share on revenue of $16 billion.

That said, the company issued full-year earnings guidance of $12.65 per share to $13.15 per share, beating a StreetAccount consensus estimate of $12.38 per share.

China’s property stocks extended gains on Friday, with the CSI 300 real estate sector hitting a near four-week high.

The index was last up 2.5% in morning trading, after rising nearly 6% on Thursday. It has gained nearly 12% in the last four sessions.

China’s real estate stocks jumped in the previous session after the People’s Bank of China along with the Ministry of Finance announced measures that would help boost the liquidity available to property developers.

The new measures will be valid until the end of 2024.

Shares of Hong Kong-listed Country Garden rose 1.4%, Logan Group gained 1.6% and CK Asset Holdings added 1.5%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Mainland Properties index rose 0.3% after climbing 4.3% in the last session.

— Shreyashi Sanyal

Japan’s central bank will not terminate its negative interest rate and yield curve control policy based on “specific numerical values” including negotiations around wage increases.

According to minutes of the BOJ’s December meeting, several board members said exiting from the NIRP and YCC will be “decided at each future meeting based on various data and information obtained at each point in time.”

At the meeting, some members also expressed the view that the bank was currently not in a situation where it would “fall behind the curve” if it did not rush to raise policy interest rates.

The members added even if the BOJ made a decision once the labor-management wage negotiations conclude in spring 2024, “it would not be too late.”

— Lim Hui Jie

The inflation rate in Japan’s capital city of Tokyo fell to 1.6% in January, down from 2.4% in December.

Tokyo’s inflation rate is widely considered to be a leading indicator of nationwide inflation trends in Japan.

Tokyo’s core inflation rate, which strips out prices of fresh food, also came in at 1.6%, lower than the 1.9% expected by economists polled by Reuters and also lower then December’s 2.1%.

The so called “core-core” inflation rate, which strips out fresh food and energy prices and is watched by the Bank of Japan, fell to 2.2% in January from 2.7%.

— Lim Hui Jie

Proactive investors will want to switch out of their cash-heavy positions now and get into bonds before the Federal Reserve begins cutting rates, said UBS’s Mark Haefele.

The 100 largest money market funds are still yielding well over 5%, but those rates will come down as the Fed trims rates. Haefele, global chief investment officer for wealth management, said that in its base case UBS expects 8.5% returns for high-quality medium duration bonds, compared to 4.3% for cash.

Another reason to go for longer-term fixed income: In a hard landing situation, portfolio losses would be cushioned by those bonds. In a recession scenario, UBS anticipates equity markets could tumble more than 15% on a total return basis, but those losses would be curbed by a 16% rally in bonds.

A portfolio that is allocated 60% toward stocks and 40% in bonds would see just a 3% decline in this circumstance, Haefele said.

“Investors holding excessive cash would not be as well insulated in this scenario – cash does not ‘rally, and the returns on rates would likely fall in this scenario,'” he wrote.

–Darla Mercado

With the downturn in freight shipments poised to reverse in 2024, partly due to low inventories spurring a revival in manufacturing output, transportation stocks should similarly rebound, according to a Thursday note from MRB Partners. Increased global trade should also give the stocks a boost, the researcher said.

Within the industry, MRB recommends air freight and logistics companies, saying, “the recent upswing in air freight revenue ton miles bodes well for the relative forward earnings of air freight stocks, which are also attractively valued.”

Railroads and truckers, meanwhile, are being held in check by “muted growth in non-intermodal rail traffic, subdued pricing trends, and elevated relative valuations,” MRB strategist Salvatore Ruscitti wrote.

The Dow Jones Transportation Average is higher by 2.3% so far this week and up 0.34% for the year thus far, exactly matching the S&P 500 this week but lagging the S&P’s 2.6% gain in 2024.

— Scott Schnipper, Michael Bloom

Shares of major semiconductor stocks dragged Nasdaq 100 futures lower on Thursday evening. The index sank by 0.5%, losing about 90 points in after-hours trading.

Semiconductor manufacturer Intel lost about 10% after reporting disappointing first-quarter guidance.

Shares of another semiconductor company, Advanced Micro Devices, sank more than 3%, while software and manufacturing equipment provider Applied Materials lost 2.3%. Semiconductor company KLA also shed 6% after posting lower-than-expected guidance for the fiscal third quarter, and Nvidia shed 1.7% on the back of the sector’s declines.

— Pia Singh

Check out the companies making headlines in after-hours trading:

• T-Mobile — The telecommunications stock shed 2.9%% after T-Mobile missed on earnings expectations for the fourth quarter, but beat on revenue. The company posted $1.67 per share in earnings, while analysts polled by LSEG expected $1.90 per share. Revenue came out at $20.48 billion for the period, higher than the expected $19.64 billion according to LSEG.
• Intel — Shares of the chip manufacturer lost nearly 8% in after-hours trading after the company posted disappointing first-quarter guidance. Intel expects adjusted earnings of 13 cents per share for the first quarter of 2024, while analysts surveyed by LSEG called for 33 cents per share. Anticipated revenue of $12.2 billion to $13.2 billion also came short of analysts’ expectations of $14.15 billion in revenue for the period.
• Levi Strauss — Shares of Levi Strauss declined nearly 1% after the apparel company said Thursday it will cut at least 10% of its global corporate workforce through restructuring efforts. The job cuts will happen in the first half of 2024, the company said. Fourth-quarter earnings also came out Thursday, with Levi’s adjusted earnings per share beating estimates, but falling short on expectations for revenue.

For the full list, read here.

— Pia Singh

Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average were lower on Thursday, down 67 points, or 0.18%.

S&P 500 futures shed about 0.15%. Nasdaq 100 futures dropped 0.4%, led by declines from Intel after a disappointing first-quarter guidance.

— Pia Singh