Stock Market Update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (flat), Nasdaq Composite (flat), and DJIA (flat) have spent the entirety of the morning near their unchanged levels, never straying far into positive or negative territory. 

Sector strength currently skews towards the negative, with seven S&P 500 sectors trading lower, though only the consumer discretionary (-0.9%) and consumer staples (-1.2%) sectors hold gains or losses wider than 0.7%. 

Amazon (AMZN 227.31, -5.07, -2.18%) is a laggard among the mega-caps, slipping below its 50-day moving average (228.14). 

Meanwhile, Meta Platforms (META 663.37, +23.77, +3.72%) trades higher after Bloomberg reported that the company is considering cutting the budget of its contentious metaverse group by up to 30% next year. 

The market also had mixed reactions to the latest batch of earnings reports. Dollar General (DG 121.62, +11.72, +10.67%) and Salesforce (CRM 243.86, +5.14, +2.15%) trade higher after topping expectations and delivering upbeat guidance, while Snowflake (SNOW 235.80, -29.20, -11.02%) and Kroger (KR 62.66, -3.54, -5.34%) slip after issuing lighter guidance. 

This morning's economic data saw initial claims drop to their lowest level in nearly two years (191,000; Briefing.com consensus: 220,000). While it was an encouraging sign for the health of the labor market, it did not hamper the market's expectations of a December rate cut, which has largely been predicated on recent labor market softness. Probabilities for additional easing remain elevated, which helps the Russell 2000 (+0.5%) and S&P Mid Cap 400 (+0.4%) outperform their larger-cap counterparts today.