Stocks End Mixed After Early Gains
4:09 pm Thursday, August 11th, 2022
Stocks struggled for direction on Thursday as investors mulled another better-than-expected inflation report.
Investors received more good economic news when the July producer price index showed a surprise decline from June. PPI dropped 0.5%, compared with an estimate of a 0.2% gain, according to a Dow Jones survey. The PPI reading excluding food and energy rose less than expected.
S&P 500 constituents Devon Energy (DVN), Cardinal Health (CAH), and Ralph Lauren (RL) pepper the top of the standings. DVN outperforms alongside gains in energy/oil exposed names, while CAH gains following earnings, and RL claws back from recent earnings-related losses.
The consumer discretionary (-0.9%) S&P 500 sector remains buried in last place. The weakness is largely due to Tesla (TSLA) and Amazon.com (AMZN) since most components trade in the green. Retailers and homebuilders occupy the top spots among sector components. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT) is up 1.8% while the SPDR S&P Homebuilder ETF (XHB) is up 0.9%.
Gold futures settled $6.50 lower (-0.4%) to $1,807.20/oz, owing in part to strength in treasury yields.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index is down about -0.1% to $105.10.
Looking ahead to Friday, market participants will receive the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment preliminary August reading (Briefing.com consensus 52.1; prior 51.5) at 10:00 a.m. ET. July Import Prices (prior 0.2%), Import Prices ex-oil (prior -0.5%), Export Prices (prior 0.7%), and Export Prices ex-agriculture (prior 0.9%) will be released at 8:30 a.m. ET.
