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Stocks drift on Wall Street as oil prices swing
AP News • • business
Key Points:
- U.S. stocks showed little overall change Wednesday, with the Dow up 0.1% and the S&P 500 mostly flat, despite strong earnings reports from BlackRock, Bank of New York Mellon, and Cintas.
- BlackRock's shares surged 7.2% after reporting better-than-expected profits and assets under management doubling to $6 trillion in three years.
- Inflation data indicated a slowdown at the wholesale level, easing concerns about further Federal Reserve interest rate hikes, with markets now seeing only a 12% chance of a rate increase at the next Fed meeting.
- Geopolitical tensions with Iran raised concerns about energy exports, causing oil prices to fluctuate near one-month highs amid threats from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to block Middle East oil exports.
- International markets saw mixed results: South Korea’s tech-heavy Kospi index surged 6.2%, driven by AI-related demand, while Chinese stocks showed modest gains and losses amid reports of slower economic growth.
