Stock market today: Live updates

The producer price index was dipped 0.1% in December, a sign that inflation may be easing. Economists polled by Dow Jones expected a gain of 0.1%.

— Fred Imbert

JPMorgan Chase shares were up more than 2% in the premarket even after the bank reported a fourth-quarter profit decline due to a $2.9 billion fee related to last year’s regional bank failures.

Specifically, the bank said earnings dropped 15% to 9.31 billion on a year-over-year basis.

— Fred Imbert, Hugh Son

Bank of America shares were down 2% in the premarket after the bank reported a a more than 50% year-over-year net income decline for the fourth quarter.

“We reported solid fourth quarter and full-year results as all our businesses achieved strong organic growth, with record client activity and digital engagement,” CEO Brian Moynihan said in a statement.

— Yun Li, Fred Imbert

Delta shares were down 4% in the premarket after the airline reported mixed results for the fourth quarter. The company earned an adjusted $1.28 per share, beating an LSEG estimate of $1.17 per share. Revenue, meanwhile, came in at $13.66 billion, about in line with expectations.

Shares of UnitedHealth were down more than 2% even after the health insurance giant posted fourth-quarter earnings and revenue that beat expectations.

The company earned an $6.16 per share, excluding items, beating an LSEG estimate of $5.98 per share. Revenue came in at $94.43 billion, above a $92.16 billion forecast.

— Fred Imbert

BlackRock shares were down slightly in the premarket after the asset management giant announced it will buy Global Infrastructure Partners for about $12 billion.

The deal is part of the firm’s increased focus on infrastructure, which CEO Larry Fink said is “one of the most exciting long-term investment opportunities.”

BlackRock also posted fourth-quarter earnings that beat analyst expectations. Additionally, the company raised its quarterly dividend.

— Fred Imbert

China’s exports rose more than expected in December, but failed to offset an overall decline in 2023, customs data showed Friday.

Exports rose by 2.3% year on year in U.S. dollar terms last month, more than the 1.7% increase forecast by a Reuters poll. Imports rose by 0.2% in December from a year earlier in U.S. dollar terms, slightly less than the 0.3% increase expected the Reuters poll.

For the whole of 2023, exports fell 4.6% while imports dropped 5.5%, according to customs data.

Read the full story here.

— Evelyn Cheng

Shares of Japan retail holding company Fast Retailing spiked almost 7% after the company posted better than expected first quarter results. The company’s fiscal first quarter runs from September to November 2023.

The company is the largest stock on the Nikkei 225 index, making up 10.45% of its weightage.

Fast Retailing’s primary subsidiary is clothing chain Uniqlo, but also has other brands in its stable, such as discount casual wear retailer GU.

In an earnings release, the company said it has posted a net profit of 107.80 billion yen ($739.57 million), a 26.7% rise compared with the same period a year earlier. Total revenue was up 13.2% year on year to 810.83 billion yen, driven mainly by increased sales in Uniqlo.

Shares in mainland China and Hong Kong reversed losses after China’s consumer price index recorded a softer fall then expected in December.

The Hang Seng index rose 0.32%, while the CSI 300 was up 0.21%, after both opening in negative territory,

The country recorded an inflation rate of -0.3%, compared with -0.5% in November and also a softer fall compared with the 0.4% expected in a Reuters poll.

China’s producer price index — which measures the change in the price of goods sold by manufacturers — recorded a 2.7% fall year-on-year, softer than the 3% decline in November.

— Lim Hui Jie

Oil prices rose after Britain and the United States carried out military strikes against targets in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, U.S. officials said, as tensions in the Red Sea mounted.

Global benchmark Brent jumped 1.87% higher to $78.90 a barrel Friday Asia trading hours, while the U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures climbed 2.05% to $73.49 per barrel.

“These targeted strikes are a clear message that the United States and our partners will not tolerate attacks on our personnel or allow hostile actors to imperil freedom of navigation in one of the world’s most critical commercial routes,” U.S. President Joe Biden said in a statement Thursday evening.

– Lee Ying Shan

The three major averages ended the day near flat, but they still managed to notch a few milestones during the trading session.

The Dow touched a new intraday all-time high, jumping 0.28% to reach 37,801.90 at one point. The 30-stock index ended the day with a tiny gain of 15.29 points, or 0.04%.

The S&P 500 popped to a 52-week high on an intraday basis of 4,798.50, a 0.31% jump, during the session. The broad-market index had a much more subdued finish for the day, inching down by 0.07%.

Finally, the Nasdaq Composite, which ended Thursday higher by 0.54 of a point, or 0.004%, managed to eke out a fifth positive session in a row.

— Darla Mercado, Chris Hayes

Japanese stocks — favored by many on Wall Street for 2024 — are having a better year so far than all but one of the Magnificent 7 stocks in the U.S., at least measured in local currency. The Topix Index has risen 4.92% in January and the Nikkei 225 by 4.74%, topped only by Nvidia surging 10.7%.

In fact, the Topix Index is outperforming the S&P 500 over the past 12 months, climbing 33.9% vs the S&P 500 gain of 22.5% over the same span, again in local currency terms.

GMO, the Boston-based money manager founded by value investor Jeremy Grantham, wrote in a recent report that, “Supportive headlines regarding shareholder-friendly policymaker initiatives along with earnings upsides from companies propelled stocks higher.”

“We believe Japan is undergoing durable fundamental improvements and lasting change in attitudes toward shareholders,” GMO analysts Drew Edwards and John Thorndike wrote. Moreover, overseas investors stand to benefit further from currency effects if, as GMO expects, “the yen reverts slowly back to fair value, USD-based investors stand to pick up a 4% tailwind.”

Despite little movement on Thursday, the three major indexes are tracking to end the week higher with just one trading session left.

The Dow has climbed 0.7% since the start of the week, while the S&P 500 added 1.8%. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite has outperformed, advancing 3.1%.

— Alex Harring

Consumer price inflation in December ran hotter than expected. But Wall Street shrugged and decided in its infinite wisdom that the Federal Reserve was more likely rather than less to speed up the anticipated rate of interest rate reductions later this year.

Based on implied probabilities derived from interest rate futures trading as calculated on the CME FedWatch tool, the odds of a quarter point cut in the fed funds rate to 5.00%-5.25% at the central bank’s March meeting rose to 70% Thursday from less than 65% Wednesday and about 62% a week ago.

Odds that rates will drop a half a percentage point to 4.75%-5.00% by the end of the next Fed meeting, in May, surged to almost 65% on Thursday, up from 53.4% on Wednesday and just 48.9% one week ago. The chance that rates will have only fallen by a quarter point at the conclusion of the May policy meeting narrowed to 30.2% from 38.5% Wednesday and 40.3% last week.

Implied forecasts for June grew more aggressive too. Odds that rates will be be lower by three quarters of a percentage point (to 4.5%-4.75%) climbed to 58.9% on Thursday from 53.2% Wednesday and 47.2% last week. In fact, even the chance that rates fall a full percentage point by the end of the June meeting jumped to 13.5% Thursday from a scant 3% the day before.

— Scott Schnipper

The iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) saw more than $1 billion worth of trades on the exchange in its first day, according to Rachel Aguirre, U.S. head of iShares Product.

That is the highest volume of any of the new bitcoin funds, trailing only the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), which was previously traded over-the-counter and already had more than $28 billion of assets.

“Trading today went very well, very orderly,” Aguirre said.

— Jesse Pound

Stock futures were little changed shortly after 6 p.m. ET. Futures tied to the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 all traded near their flatlines.

— Alex Harring