NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are drifting Thursday as the market’s big burst following Donald Trump’s election continues to cool.
The S&P 500 was 0.1% lower in midday trading but still near its all-time high set on Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 15 points, or less than 0.1%, as of 11:15 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.2% lower.
The Walt Disney Co. helped lead the market with a jump of 7.8% after the entertainment giant reported stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. CEO Robert Iger credited improved profits at its streaming businesses and strong box-office results for its movies, including “Inside Out 2” and “Deadpool & Wolverine,” among other things.
Tapestry shares jumped 12.7% after the luxury fashion company said it’s terminating its merger with Capri, another luxury brand owner. The companies agreed to an $8.5 billion deal last year to unite the makers of Coach and Michael Kors handbags, but the tie-up faced numerous challenges, including a lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission to block the deal on antitrust grounds.
Capri shares rose 3.9% after erasing a morning loss.
But a 2.3% drop for Cisco Systems was helping to keep indexes in check, even though the tech giant reported stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Investors may have been looking for it to raise its financial forecasts more, analysts suggested.
Super Micro Computer, which has been one of the biggest winners of the artificial-intelligence boom, fell 7.4% for the worst loss in the S&P 500. It said on Wednesday that it doesn’t expect to file its quarterly financial statements with U.S. regulators on time.
The server maker's stock has been struggling recently, particularly after Ernst & Young resigned as its public accounting firm. A special committee of the company's board has since said that it’s found “no evidence of fraud or misconduct on the part of management or the Board of Directors.”
Some of the stocks that have felt the biggest bump from Trump's election also lost momentum. Tesla fell 3.5% and was on track for just its second loss since Election Day. It's run by Elon Musk, who has become a close Trump ally.
Smaller stocks were also lagging the rest of the market by a bit, and the Russell 2000 index of small stocks was down 0.3%. It's a turnaround from the election's immediate aftermath, when the thought was that an “America First” president would mean better things for companies that do business domestically rather than big multinationals that could be hurt by tariffs and trade wars.
Even though Republicans have swept into control of the White House, Senate and House of Representatives, which could give them more leeway to push through their policies, “promises made on the campaign trail may not be implemented immediately, with final legislation likely to be a pared-down version of the original proposals,” according to Solita Marcelli, chief investment officer, Americas, at UBS Global Wealth Management.
Stocks were also feeling the effects of swinging yields in the bond market following the latest update on inflation. Prices paid at the U.S. wholesale level were 2.4% higher in October from a year earlier. That was an acceleration from September’s 1.9% inflation rate and a worse jump than economists expected.
A separate report, meanwhile, suggested the U.S. job market remains solid. Fewer U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week in the latest signal that layoffs aren’t taking off.
Treasury yields initially jumped following the reports, as traders trimmed their expectations a bit for a coming cut to interest rates by the Federal Reserve at its meeting next month. But yields later regressed, and the yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.41% from 4.45% late Wednesday.
The Fed began cutting rates from their two-decade high in September to offer support for the job market, hoping to keep it humming after bringing inflation nearly all the way down to its target of 2%. Prior forecasts published by the Fed implied it could keep cutting rates through next year.
But Trump’s victory may have scrambled such plans. Economists say his preferences for lower tax rates, higher tariffs and less regulation could ultimately lead to higher U.S. government debt and inflation, along with faster economic growth.
While lower interest rates can give a boost to the economy and to prices for investments, they can also give inflation more fuel.
In stock markets abroad, European indexes were higher, including a 1.3% jump for Germany’s DAX. Asian markets were mixed, meanwhile. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 2%, but South Korea’s Kospi added 0.1%.
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AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.
