FX.co ★ US Stocks Lack Direction

On Thursday, U.S. stocks experienced fluctuations between slight gains and losses as investors evaluated shares in artificial intelligence and reviewed corporate earnings. The likelihood of an interest rate reduction by the Federal Reserve next month increased following the latest Challenger report. This report revealed that U.S. companies announced the highest number of job reductions for the month of October in 22 years, attributed to the adoption of AI and cost-cutting strategies. Consequently, the probability of a 25 basis points rate cut in December rose to approximately 68%. The consumer staples and consumer discretionary sectors underperformed, while the energy and materials sectors emerged as the strongest. Qualcomm saw a 1.4% decline after its intellectual property licensing revenue fell slightly short of expectations. Tesla dipped by 0.1% in anticipation of its annual shareholder meeting. Additionally, Microsoft (-0.7%), Apple (-0.3%), Amazon (-0.4%), and Meta (-0.9%) also faced declines. In contrast, Nvidia gained 0.8% and Alphabet increased by 0.6%.