Stock market today: Wall Street edges back from its record

[January 25, 2025]  By STAN CHOE

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks pulled back from their all-time high on Friday as they closed out a second straight winning week.

The S&P 500 slipped 0.3% a day after setting a record. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 140 points, or 0.3%, and the Nasdaq composite sank 0.5%.

Trading was quiet through the day, aided by relative steadiness in the bond market, which has been driving much of the action on Wall Street lately. When worries about inflation and the U.S. government’s swelling debt have been on the rise, Treasury yields have climbed and helped knock down stock prices. When concerns ebb, such as after last week’s encouraging update on inflation, yields have eased and helped stocks rise.

A mostly encouraging start to the earnings reporting season for big U.S. companies has also helped prop up the stock market. Even if higher Treasury yields are pushing downward on their stock prices, companies can make up for it by delivering bigger profits.

“If 2024 was the year of the election, 2025 is the year of earnings,” according to Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management. “Earnings have been fundamentally improving, but how long can that last and how much can they rise?”

Texas Instruments fell 7.5% despite reporting profit for the latest quarter that topped analysts’ expectations.

In a sign of how much pressure is on companies to keep growing, analysts focused on discouraging signals of how much profit the company is likely to make from each $1 of revenue during the first three months of 2025. That helped drag down stocks across the semiconductor industry.

CSX sank 2.9% even though the railroad delivered a profit for the latest quarter that matched analysts’ expectations. Its revenue for the last three months of 2024 just missed analysts’ forecasts as it dealt with the effects of hurricanes.

On the winning side of Wall Street were Novo Nordisk’s U.S.-listed shares, which jumped 8.5%. The Danish company reported results from a clinical trial of a treatment for people who are overweight or obese, which could mean bigger profits in the future.

NextEra Energy climbed 5.2% after the owner of the Florida Power & Light utility reported profit for the latest quarter that was slightly above expectations. CEO John Ketchum said his company is benefiting from increased demand for electricity.

Verizon Communications rose 0.9%. It delivered results for the latest quarter that edged past analysts’ expectations, benefiting in part from price increases imposed in recent quarters, and unveiled a strategy to help businesses use artificial intelligence.

Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

All told, the S&P 500 fell 17.47 points to 6,101.24. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 140.82 to 44,424.25, and the Nasdaq composite sank 99.38 to 19,954.30.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.61% from 4.65% late Thursday. Other yields also pulled lower following a couple reports on the U.S. economy that came in worse than expected.

One said sentiment among U.S. consumers is weaker than economists had forecast and fell in January for the first time in six months. The drops were widespread, carrying across incomes, wealth and age groups, according to Joanne Hsu, director of the Surveys of Consumers at the University of Michigan.

A separate preliminary report suggested U.S. business activity is also weaker than expected, with its growth slowing. A third, potentially more encouraging report said sales of previously occupied homes were slightly stronger last month than expected. That capped the weakest year for such sales since 1995.

Traders don’t expect the weak data to push the Federal Reserve to cut its main interest rate at its meeting next week. They’re virtually certain the central bank will hold steady, according to data from CME Group.

If they’re correct, it would be the first meeting the Fed has done so since it began lowering the federal funds rate in September to take pressure off the U.S. economy. Lower rates can goose prices for investments, but they can also give inflation more fuel. And worries have been rising about stubborn inflation, as well as the effects of potential tariffs and other policies championed by President Donald Trump.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed across Europe and Asia.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 edged down by 0.1% after the Bank of Japan raised its benchmark interest rate to about 0.5% from 0.25%, as was widely expected. It is the highest level for the rate since 2008, as the Bank of Japan shifts out of a long spell of extreme low interest rates meant to spur more borrowing and spending.

Stocks jumped 1.9% in Hong Kong and 0.7% in Shanghai for some of the bigger moves in global markets.

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AP Writers Matt Ott and Zimo Zhong contributed.

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