Stock Market Update

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market opened to weakness across its mega-cap names, sending the S&P 500 (-0.1%) and Nasdaq Composite (-0.2%) slightly lower, while the DJIA (+0.1%) remains slightly above its flatline.

The communication services (-1.2%) and consumer discretionary (-0.8%) sectors are among the worst-performing S&P 500 sectors due to weakness in mega-cap components such as Alphabet (GOOG 241.14, -3.22, -1.32%), Meta Platforms (META 730.75, -12.65, -1.70%), and Amazon (AMZN 219.59, -2.58, -1.16%).

The information technology sector (+0.3%) is faring better than the other mega-cap-heavy sectors so far, supported by an early gain in NVIDIA (NVDA 183.51, +1.66, +0.91%). 

Separately, the energy sector (-1.0%) lags the market again today as the price of oil continues to decrease, with crude oil falling $0.82 to $62.65 per barrel, a decrease of 1.3%.

The health care sector (+0.5%) is the only sector with a gain wider than 0.5% as several sectors oscillate around their flatlines in the early mixed action. 

Just released, The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index fell to 94.2 in September (Briefing.com consensus 96.0) from a prior level of 97.4 August.

The August JOLTs Job Openings saw 7.227 million job openings, from an upwardly revised 7.208 million (from 7.181 million) in July.

The Chicago PMI for September contracted to 40.6 (Briefing.com consensus: 41.0) from a prior level of 41.5.