NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is hanging near its record on Friday after big companies turned in a mixed set of profit results.
The S&P 500 was edging down by 0.1% in early trading, a day after pulling away from its all-time high following a weaker-than-expected profit forecast from Walmart. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 255 points, or 0.6%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was up 0.2%.
Despite the relatively calm movements at the market’s surface level, plenty of zigzags churned underneath. Booking Holdings, the company behind Booking.com and OpenTable, climbed 2.6% after delivering a better profit for the final three months of 2024 than analysts expected. It was able to grow its revenue while also cutting its operating costs.
Celsius Holdings, which sells “better-for-you” energy drinks, leaped 23.1% after saying it agreed to buy Alani Nu, a beverage company that focuses on female customers. Analysts called the purchase price, $1.65 billion net of tax effects, reasonable and said the deal should quickly add to its profits.
On the losing end of Wall Street was Akamai Technologies, even though the cybersecurity and cloud computing company reported stronger profit than expected. It fell 11.6% as investors focused instead on its forecasts for revenue and other financial measures this upcoming year, which fell short of analysts’ expectations.
UnitedHealth Group was one of the heaviest weights on the market and fell 8.6% following a report that the U.S. Department of Justice has started an investigation into the health care giant’s Medicare billing practices. When asked for comment about the report from The Wall Street Journal, a UnitedHealth representative said they “will let you know if we have anything to say.”
Rivian slid 5.2% after the electric truck maker issued weaker-than-expected guidance, despite posting a smaller loss and stronger fourth-quarter sales than Wall Street expected.
Overall, the S&P 500 is heading for a week of only modest moves. It’s on track for a tiny loss of less than 0.1%. Helping to lift stocks has been a steady parade of better-than-expected profit reports. That’s been working against worries about stubbornly high inflation, which could prevent the Federal Reserve from delivering more relief for the economy and financial markets through lower interest rates.
Treasury yields held relatively steady in the bond market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury eased a bit to 4.49% from 4.51% late Thursday. The two-year Treasury yield, which more closely tracks expectations for upcoming Fed action, edged down to 4.26% from 4.27%.
In stock markets abroad, indexes rose modestly across much of Europe and Asia.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 edged up 0.3% after the government said a key measure of inflation remained above the Bank of Japan’s target level last month. That could encourage it to keep raising interest rates. Last month, the Bank of Japan raised its key policy rate to about 0.50% from 0.25%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng jumped 4% for one of the world’s largest moves,, boosted by a surge for e-commerce firm Alibaba, which reported stronger profit for the end of last year than expected. It also talked up its artificial-intelligence developments.
Excitement around AI, along with the potential profits that it can create, has been one of the main reasons stock indexes have rallied to their records.
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AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed.
