Stock market today: Live updates

Shares of Charles Schwab slipped nearly 1% in premarket trading Wednesday after the firm reported fourth-quarter earnings. Profits for the quarterly period was significantly lower, but beat analysts’ expectations.

Fourth-quarter earnings came out at 68 cents per share, excluding items, while analysts polled by FactSet forecasted 64 cents per share. Quarterly revenue was $4.46 billion for the period, falling slightly short of the $4.49 billion expected by analysts.

The firm’s net income for the quarter dropped to $1 billion from $2 billion for the same period a year ago. Net income for the twelve months ending on Dec. 31 was $5.1 billion, the press release said, compared with $7.2 billion for the year-earlier period.

The stock has lost more than 6.5% so far this year.

— Pia Singh

David Rubenstein, The Carlyle Group co-founder and co-chairman, believes that the Federal Reserve will have a difficult job cutting interest rates in the middle of a presidential election to maintain its political independence.

“it’s very difficult to cut rates when you’re right in the middle of a presidential election season, because the party that’s out of power will say, ‘well, you’re trying to help the party in power,'” Rubenstein said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Market pricing Tuesday morning indicated about a 67% chance the FOMC will begin cutting in March, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch measure. Traders have priced in six rate cuts for 2024.

“Now, Jay Powell is Republican, presumably is not trying to help Biden but he’s trying to do what’s right for the country,” Rubenstein said. “So if he starts cutting rates significantly, in September, October, November, or before the election… People will say, ‘well, you’re helping the Democrats.'”

— Yun Li

U.S.-listed shares of Chinese companies fell Wednesday following the release of weaker-than-expected GDP data out of China.

Shares of JD.com and PDD were down more than 4% each in the premarket. Alibaba lost 3.3%. The iShares China Large Cap ETF (FXI) was also down 3.1%.

— Fred Imbert

U.K. inflation unexpectedly nudged upwards to 4% year-on-year in December, fueled by a rise in alcohol and tobacco prices.

Economists polled by Reuters had expected a modest decline in the annual headline CPI to 3.8%, after November’s sharper-than-expected fall to 3.9%.

The closely watched core CPI figure — which excludes volatile food, energy, alcohol and tobacco prices — came in at an annual 5.1%, above a 4.9% Reuters forecast and unchanged from November.

“As we have seen in the U.S., France and Germany, inflation does not fall in a straight line, but our plan is working and we should stick to it,” British Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt said in a statement.

– Elliot Smith

China reported fourth-quarter GDP figures slightly below expectations, bringing 2023 growth to 5.2%.

The country’s economy grew 5.2% in the October to December quarter, China’s National Bureau of Statistics said Wednesday. That’s below expectations of a 5.3% growth forecast by economists in a Reuters poll.

China’s statistics bureau said the unemployment rate in cities in December was 5.1%, while that for people ages 16 to 24 remained far higher at 14.9%.

The bureau had in the summer temporarily suspended the release of the younger age group’s unemployment rate, citing the need to reassess calculation methods. That unemployment rate had previously climbed to records above 20%.

Read the full story here.

— Evelyn Cheng

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was the worst-performing index for a second straight day in Asia, falling 2.76% as real estate and consumer non-cyclical stocks declined.

Chinese tech giant Alibaba’s subsidiary Alibaba Health Information Technology, which plunged 7.43%, was the biggest loser on the HSI.

It was followed by residential property manager Longfor Group and tech heavyweight Meituan, which shed 5.68% and 5.48%, respectively.

Business sentiment at big Japanese manufacturers slid in January for the first time in four months, according to the monthly Reuters Tankan survey.

The sentiment index for manufacturers stood at +6, down from +12 six points in December, while the service-sector index grew to +29 in January from +26 in the previous month.

The monthly poll by Reuters tracks the Bank of Japan’s key tankan quarterly survey, and is calculated by subtracting the percentage of pessimistic respondents from optimistic ones. A positive figure means optimists outnumber pessimists, and vice versa.

Reuters said the poll underscored concerns about weak external demand, especially from China.

— Lim Hui Jie

The market looks overvalued by about 9% to 10%, according to Aswath Damodaran.

“The expectation game has turned against the market,” the professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business told CNBC’s “Closing Bell” on Tuesday.

Markets shocked investors in 2023, defying expectations for another rough year. Now, he fears that the market’s “turned too much in the other direction,” believing that inflation’s under control and the economy’s skirted a recession.

“This year, good news is going to require a lot more than it did last year and that too me is why I think stocks are in a dangerous place right now,” he said.

— Samantha Subin

Shares of Interactive Brokers slumped nearly 3% after posting mixed quarterly results.

Revenues came in at $1.15 billion and slightly ahead of the $1.14 billion expected, according to LSEG. However, the firm posted earnings of $1.52 per share, falling short of the $1.55 expected.

Interactive Brokers said that options volumes were up 21% and customer accounts rose 23% year over year, but equities volumes declined 22%.

Stock futures opened flat on Tuesday evening.

S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq-100 futures were little changed. Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average inched down 17 points.

— Samantha Subin