Wall Street inched lower early today following last week’s rout, the market’s worst stretch in six months, according to the Associated Press. Futures for the S&P 500 were off 0.3%, and futures for the Dow Jones industrials ticked down 0.2% before the bell.
Worries over a U.S. government shutdown and the continued strike by American autoworkers were weighing on markets.
Media and entertainment companies got a small boost from news that a tentative agreement was reached Sunday to end a historic screenwriters strike after nearly five months. No deal is yet in the works for striking actors. Shares in Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount, Disney, and Netflix all rose about 2% or less.
Amazon announced today that it is investing up to $4 billion in Anthropic and taking a minority stake in the artificial intelligence startup. It’s the latest Big Tech company to pour money into AI as they race to capitalize on the opportunities that the latest generation of the technology is set to fuel. Amazon was up less than 1% before markets opened this morning.
Adding to unease, the U.S. federal government is heading toward a shutdown at the month’s end that would disrupt many services, squeeze workers, and roil politics. It comes as Republicans in the House, fueled by hard-right demands for deep cuts, face a confrontation with Democrats over federal spending.
In other trading today, U.S. benchmark crude oil lost 15 cents to $89.88 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, the pricing basis for international trading, slipped 10 cents to $91.86 per barrel.
The U.S. dollar rose to 148.68 Japanese yen from 148.28 yen.
