Wall Street inched lower early Monday ahead of a busy news week that includes new data on inflation and how retailers are holding up, as well as a meeting between President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, according to an Associated Press report.
Futures for the S&P 500 lost 0.2% before the bell while the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged 0.1% lower.
Biden and Xi are due to meet on Wednesday on the sidelines of a Pacific Rim summit in California for the first face-to-face encounter in a year between the leaders of the world’s two biggest economies.
Both seek a greater measure of stability to a relationship that is being defined by differences over export controls, tensions over Taiwan, the wars in the Middle East and Europe, and incidents such as the infamous spy balloon.
A fresh read on U.S. consumer prices and retail sales are due Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively.
On Thursday, a jump in Treasury yields knocked stocks lower to break an eight-day winning streak for the S&P 500, one of its longest in the last two decades. That came after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell dashed some of the hopes building among traders that the Fed may finally be done hiking its main interest rate.
But by late Friday, traders were betting on only a 9.1% chance that the Fed will raise its main interest rate at its next meeting in December, according to data from CME Group. That’s down from 14.6% a day earlier.
The Federal Reserve has said it wants to keep such expectations low because they otherwise could lead to a vicious cycle that keeps inflation high.
On Friday, Wall Street rose sharply to add to an already strong November, which is on track to be one of the market’s best months of the year. The S&P 500 jumped 1.6% and the Dow gained 1.2%. The Nasdaq jumped 2%.
