Investing.com – Wall Street traded mixed on Friday as weaker-than-expected retail sales and disappointing earnings from department store chains dampened investor enthusiasm.
At 11:33AM ET (15:33GMT), the Dow Jones slipped 13 points, or 0.06%, the S&P 500 lost 3 points, or 0.12%, while the Nasdaq Composite inched up 3 points, or 0.05%.
The SPDR S&P Retail (MX:XRT) index fell another 1.5% after sinking 2.7% as department store sales continued to disappoint for a second consecutive day.
Following up on Macy’s (NYSE:M) disappointing quarterly report, both Nordstrom (NYSE:JWN) and JC Penney (NYSE:JCP) published worse-than-expected same store sales. Shares slumped nearly 9% and 10%, respectively.
Retail sales data only served to heighten concern as the 0.4% gain in April, missed estimates for a rise of 0.6%.
Consumer sentiment did however unexpectedly rise to 97.7 in preliminary data for May from the University of Michigan, but market players remained concerned that the increase in optimism was not translating to increased spending.
In other economic data, inflation figures missed the mark as the core annualized reading registered a surprise drop to 1.9%, its lowest level since October 2015 and below the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) target of 2.0%.
U.S. business inventories rose in March as declining sales of motor vehicles continued to boost stocks, government data showed on Friday.
After the data, Chicago Fed president Charles Evans said he’d be “very surprised” if the central bank raised rates more than twice this year and it could be just once if there were “more uncertainties about the inflation outlook”.
Philadelphia Fed chief Patrick Harker will speak on the economic outlook at 12:30PM ET (16:30GMT).
Markets continued to look for a hike in June although the data pushed the odds down to around 70%, from 74% prior to the releases, according to Investing.com's Fed Rate Monitor Tool.
In other company news, General Electric (NYSE:GE) led the decliners on the Dow with losses of 2.4% after Deutsche Bank (DE:DBKGn) downgraded its shares to sell.
Sprint (NYSE:S) and its controlling shareholder SoftBank started preliminary conversations to merge with T-Mobile US Inc (NASDAQ:TMUS), Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Dick’s Sporting Goods (NYSE:DKS) dropped 6% as the company admitted that it had overstated earnings by $23.4 million due to an accounting error.
On the upside, Trade Desk (NASDAQ:TTD) soared 25% after the online advertiser reported quarterly revenue that handily beat analysts' estimates.
Furthermore, music streaming service Spotify will carry out a direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange when it goes public later this year or early next year, a source familiar with the situation said on Friday.
Meanwhile, oil pulled back in choppy trade on Friday as investors took profit after two sessions of strong gain that put black gold on track for weekly gains of 3%.
Crude was still headed for weekly gains of 3% on the back of a large draw in U.S. inventories and Algeria and Iraq lifted hopes that the OPEC-led supply-cut agreement would be extended beyond June, after both nations said they would support a deal extension.
Market players showed caution Friday ahead of the latest weekly data on U.S. drilling activity and continuing concern that the increase in stateside production would derail OPEC’s attempts to cut down on the global supply glut.
Last week, oilfield service provider Baker Hughes said rigs rose by 6 to 703 for the sixteenth straight weekly increase.
U.S. crude futures fell 0.38% to $47.65 by 11:34AM ET (15:34GMT), while Brent oil lost 0.24% to $50.65.