Investing.com – Wall Street traded lower on Friday as investors took profits off two back-to-back rallies with the notable exception of a surge in Twitter on yet another round of buyout rumors.
At 11:08AM ET (15:08GMT), the Dow Jones lost 45 points, or 0.24%, while the S&P 500 fell 5 points, or 0.22%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite traded down 13 points, or 0.25%.
Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) bucked the general trend lower, soaring more than 20% on reports that the social media company was moving closer to being bought out by the likes of Alphabet’s Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) or Salesforce.com (NYSE:CRM).
Vanda Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:VNDA) popped more than 2% on news that it was studying strategic alternatives.
Marriott International Inc (NASDAQ:MAR) complete its acquisition of Starwood Hotels, thus creating the largest hotel company in the world.
On the economic front, activity in the US manufacturing sector registered a larger-than-expected decline in September, amid the slowest expansion of new orders this year, according to preliminary data released on Friday.
In a report, market research group Markit said that its flash manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) dropped to 51.4 in September from the prior month’s final reading of 52.0.
Analysts had expected the index to decrease to 51.9 this month.
In the wake of the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) decision to leave rates unchanged at its last policy meeting on Wednesday, Boston Fed president Eric Rosengren said on Friday that the currently low levels of unemployment posed a risk to the economy and explained that as the reason why he preferred to hike rates at the last policy meeting.
Later in the session, Philadelphia Fed president Patrick Harker will kick off a regional Fed presidents panel to discuss the role of the central bank in the community. Atlanta Fed chief Dennis Lockhart and Cleveland Fed president Loretta Mester will participate.
Separately, Dallas Fed president Robert Kaplan will make an appearance at the Texas Oil & Gas Association Lone Star Energy Forum.
Markets are currently pricing in just a 14.5% chance of a rate hike at the Fed’s next meeting in November, according to Investing.com's Fed Rate Monitor Tool. For December, odds stood at 59.3%.
Meanwhile, oil recovered from losses of more than 1% in early trading on reports that Saudi Arabia would be willing to cut production if Iran agrees to freeze output at current levels.
Sources told Reuters that the offer was made this month, though it wasn’t clear if this was the topic of private talks between the two countries taking place in Vienna on Thursday and Friday.
Earlier this year in Doha, OPEC discussions on a freeze broke down as Saudi Arabia insisted that Iran needed to join in the action and Tehran refused until it reached pre-sanction levels of output.
Major oil producers have planned informal talks on the sidelines of the International Energy Forum in Algiers next week.
U.S. crude oil futures were still trading with slight losses of near 0.3%, the first negative reading this week. Regardless, West Texas was on track to pocket weekly gains of nearly 6%.