Wall St muted with focus on more data, Fed commentary

By Shashwat Chauhan and Purvi Agarwal

(Reuters) – Wall Street’s main indexes were subdued in choppy trading on Tuesday after the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq notched record high levels in the last session, with focus on a crucial jobs report later this week along with more data and commentary from Federal Reserve officials.

The hotly anticipated monthly payrolls figures on Friday, a crucial metric in gauging the Fed’s interest rate trajectory, are on top of investors’ radar.

A November reading of private payrolls is also due on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, a Labor Department report showed U.S. job openings rose to 7.744 million in October, compared with estimates of 7.475 million, as per economists polled by Reuters.

At 10:08 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 69.27 points, or 0.15%, to 44,712.73, the S&P 500 lost 2.00 points, or 0.03%, to 6,044.99 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 23.01 points, or 0.12%, to 19,427.32.

Fed Governor Christopher Waller said on Monday he is inclined “at present” to support another interest rate cut later this month, while New York Fed President John Williams could not yet say what the central bank’s next move will be.

“We’re hearing from different Fed officials, some saying we should wait and pause and others saying a quarter point is certainly doable,” said Paul Nolte, senior wealth adviser and market strategist for Murphy & Sylvest.

“(The Fed’s decision) is still up in the air and the data over the next 10 days or so will make that decision a little bit easier for the Fed.”

On the docket for Tuesday, comments from Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee and Fed Board Governor Adriana Kugler would be parsed through.

The Nasdaq and the S&P 500 scored to record closing highs in the last session, as the tech rally spilled into December after U.S. equities’ stellar November performance.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump recaptured the White House in last month’s election and his Republican Party swept both houses of Congress, boosting stocks in November.

Analysts have cited Trump’s potential plans for tax cuts and deregulation as a positive for stocks, though tariffs could be a negative on concerns of fresh inflationary pressures and a global trade war.

Among individual movers, Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) slipped 1.1% after data showed the automaker’s sales of China-made electric vehicles fell 4.3% year-on-year to 78,856 in November, pulling the consumer discretionary sector down 0.2%.

Zscaler (NASDAQ:ZS) dropped 5.3% after analysts noted that the cybersecurity firm’s second-quarter revenue forecast failed to impress.

U.S. Steel shed 8.3% after Trump reiterated his opposition to Nippon Steel’s planned $15 billion the purchase of the company.

U.S.-listed shares of South Korean companies lost ground with iShares MSCI South Korea ETF down 5.7%, after President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law in the country.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 1.23-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and by a 1.5-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P 500 posted 16 new 52-week highs and two new lows, while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 64 new highs and 50 new lows.