Treasury yields eased a bit, following a larger initial drop, after one report said the US unemployment rate was at its worst level last month since 2021, but employers also added more jobs than economists expected. A separate report, meanwhile, said an underlying measure of strength for revenue at US retailers grew more in October than economists expected.
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The mixed data initially sent Treasury yields lower in the bond market. The knee-jerk reaction seemed to be that the reports could encourage the Federal Reserve to see the slowing job market as the biggest threat to the economy, rather than high inflation, and cut interest rates further in 2026. But yields quickly recovered and then drifted up and down.
What the Fed does with interest rates is a top driver for Wall Street because lower rates can give a boost to the economy and to prices for investments, even if they also may worsen inflation. A report coming on Thursday will show how bad inflation was last month, and economists expect it to show prices for US consumers continue to rise faster than anyone would like.
On Wall Street, the sharpest losses came from companies in the oil business as prices for crude kept sliding.
That drove APA’s stock down 5.2 per cent. Marathon Petroleum sank 4.7 per cent and Halliburton dropped 4.3 per cent for some of Wall Street’s larger losses.
Artificial-intelligence technology stocks, meanwhile, were mixed after dominating the market in recent days.
Oracle rose 2 per cent, and Broadcom added 0.4 per cent. They both had dropped to sharp losses last week, even though both reported stronger profits for the latest quarter than analysts expected.
But CoreWeave, which rents out access to top-of-the-line AI chips, fell 3.9 per cent.
Questions remain about whether all the spending underway on AI technology will produce the kind of profits and productivity that will make it worth the expense.
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Shares of Warner Bros Discovery lost 2.7 per cent amid reports the company is planning to reject Paramount Skydance’s hostile takeover bid due to concerns about financing and other terms.
After deliberating and reviewing the Paramount bid, the Warner Bros board still views the company’s deal with Netflix as offering greater value, said sources close to the deliberations, who asked not to be identified discussing confidential information. Paramount’s shares dropped 1 per cent, while Netflix rose 0.9 per cent.
Elsewhere on Wall Street, Pfizer fell 3.4 per cent after giving a forecast for profit in 2026 that was below what some analysts expected. Its forecast for revenue next year was close to analysts’ expectations.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.14 per cent from 4.18 per cent late on Monday.