Wall Street inched lower early Monday ahead of a busy news week that includes new data on inflation and how retailers are holding up, as well as a meeting between President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
Futures for the S&P 500 lost 0.2% before the bell while the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged 0.1% lower.
Biden and Xi are due to meet on Wednesday on the sidelines of a Pacific Rim summit in California for the first face-to-face encounter in a year between the leaders of the world’s two biggest economies.
Both seek a greater measure of stability to a relationship that is being defined by differences over export controls, tensions over Taiwan, the wars in the Middle East and Europe, and incidents such as the infamous spy balloon.
A fresh read on U.S. consumer prices and retail sales are due Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively.
In premarket trading Monday, Boeing jumped 3.2% after ringing up more than $60 billion in aircraft orders on the first day of the Dubai Air Show.
Long-haul carrier Emirates announced a $52 billion purchase of Boeing Co. aircraft, including 90 Boeing 777s and five 787 Dreamliners.
Its low-cost sister airline, FlyDubai, followed up with an $11 billion order of 30 Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners, the first wide-body aircraft in its fleet.
In Asia on Monday, the Hang Seng in Hong Kong surged 1.4% to 17,440.73, while the Shanghai Composite index rose 0.3% to 3,046.53.
Alibaba Group Holding and JD.com reported a pickup in sales for this year’s Singles’ Day shopping festival as they grapple with a stop-start economic recovery in China and a brutal price war. But neither company disclosed exact revenue figures.
Japan will report economic growth figures Wednesday and China will give a monthly update on factory output.
Elsewhere, in Europe at midday Germany’s DAX rose 0.2%, the CAC 40 in Paris advanced 0.3% and Britain’s FTSE 100 gained 0.6%.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index gained 0.1% to 32,585.11. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.4% to 6,948.80. In South Korea, the Kospi was 0.2% lower at 2,403.76.
On Thursday, a jump in Treasury yields knocked stocks lower to break an eight-day winning streak for the S&P 500, one of its longest in the last two decades. That came after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell dashed some of the hopes building among traders that the Fed may finally be done hiking its main interest rate.
But by late Friday, traders were betting on only a 9.1% chance that the Fed will raise its main interest rate at its next meeting in December, according to data from CME Group. That’s down from 14.6% a day earlier.
The Federal Reserve has said it wants to keep such expectations low because they otherwise could lead to a vicious cycle that keeps inflation high.
High interest rates and bond yields hurt prices for stocks and other investments, while slowing the economy broadly and raising the pressure on the financial system in hopes of getting inflation under control.
Japan will report its economic growth figures on Wednesday and China will give a monthly update on factory output and other indicators.
Oil prices are essentially flat after three weeks of losses as worries over the potential impact on supplies due to the Israel-Hamas war eased and crude shipments from Russia and the United States rose.
Early Monday, a barrel of benchmark U.S. crude for delivery in December gained 21 cents to $77.38 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It rose $1.43 on Friday to settle at $77.17.
Brent crude, the international standard, rose 22 cents to $81.65 per barrel. On Friday it added $1.42 to $81.43 per barrel. Both still lost nearly 4% last week on worries about supplies outstripping demand.
In currency dealings, the dollar rose to 151.79 Japanese yen from 151.47 yen, hitting a one-year high. The euro edged higher at $1.0673 from $1.0681.
On Friday, Wall Street rose sharply to add to an already strong November, which is on track to be one of the market’s best months of the year. The S&P 500 jumped 1.6% and the Dow gained 1.2%. The Nasdaq jumped 2%.
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