U.S. stocks finished a choppy session mostly lower on Thursday after the ISM manufacturing index showed American factory activities contracted to a 30-month low in November.
The Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing index, a key barometer of activity at American factories, fell to 49% in November, down from 50.2% in October. The ISM report is viewed as a window into the health of the economy, and numbers below 50% signal the economy is contracting.
Stocks turned down on profit-taking after Wednesday’s big jump, said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets, in a note, while the ISM data underlined expectations the Fed has room to slow down the pace of rate increases.
Earlier, a gauge of U.S. inflation, the personal consumption expenditures index, rose a modest 0.3% in October, adding another piece of evidence that points to slowly easing price pressures. The yearly rate of inflation slowed to 6% in October from 6.2% in the prior month and a 40-year high of 7% last summer. The core gauge that strips out volatile food and energy costs, rose 0.2% last month, below the consensus estimate of 0.3% collected from economists by Dow Jones……
[read more]
*Click on the “First Slice” icon to read the full article! After you read the full article, come back and tell us your thoughts.