On Wall Street, the Dow Jones index slightly fell in cautious trading on Thursday, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq rose for the third consecutive day.
The Dow Jones weakened by 0.07 percent to 47,850 points, while the S&P 500 rose by 0.11 percent to 6,857 points, and the Nasdaq index increased by 0.22 percent to 23,505 points.
The world’s largest stock exchange has been trading cautiously for days as almost all recent data shows that the growth of the U.S. economy is slowing, and the labor market is weakening.
As a result, investors believe that the U.S. central bank will further reduce interest rates by 0.25 percentage points at next week’s meeting, as it did in September and October.
Inflation Report in Focus
There are no other significant news that would significantly impact the market, and greater attention will be drawn to the inflation report on Friday.
Inflation in the U.S. continues to run significantly above the Fed’s target levels of around 2 percent, so the new data will show how much room the Fed has for easing monetary policy.
Cautious trading is indicated by below-average trading volume. About 15.13 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges yesterday, while the average daily volume over the last 20 days is 17.98 billion.
European indices also rose yesterday. The London FTSE strengthened by 0.19 percent to 9,710 points, while the Frankfurt DAX rose by 0.79 percent to 23,882 points, and the Paris CAC increased by 0.43 percent to 8,122 points.
On most Asian exchanges, stock prices slightly rose on Friday, heading for weekly gains, primarily due to investor confidence that the U.S. central bank will lower rates next week.
MSCI index of Asia-Pacific stocks, excluding Japan, was up 0.1 percent around 7:00 AM and is on track for a weekly gain of about 0.5 percent.
This morning, stock prices in Hong Kong, Australia, India, Shanghai, and South Korea rose between 0.2 and 1.5 percent, while in Japan they fell by 1.2 percent.
The decline in the Japanese Nikkei index is mainly due to a correction in stock prices in the technology sector after strong growth in previous days.
In South Korea, however, the Kospi index rose as technology stocks recovered after a sharp decline the day before.
Dollar Slightly Strengthened, Oil Prices Slightly Fell
On the currency markets, the value of the dollar against a basket of currencies slightly increased. However, due to weakness in previous days, the dollar is facing a weekly loss of about 0.5 percent.
The dollar index, which shows the value of the U.S. dollar against the other six major world currencies, is around 99.05 points this morning, while it was 98.92 points at the same time yesterday.
At the same time, the exchange rate of the dollar against the Japanese currency slid from yesterday’s 155.55 to 154.65 yen.
The U.S. currency also weakened against the euro, with the price of the euro reaching 1.1660 dollars, while it was 1.1655 dollars at the same time yesterday.
Oil prices, on the other hand, slightly fell. On the London market, the price of a barrel slipped by 0.11 percent to 63.20 dollars, while on the U.S. market, a barrel decreased by 0.23 percent to 59.55 dollars.
