Stocks logged small gains Wednesday on two major indexes, despite uninspiring economic reports and some ominous words from the president-elect.
The S&P 500 finished the day up 0.2%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 0.3%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq was down 0.1%. The price of bitcoin was down about 3% and hovered well below $100,000.
Stocks gained, barely, as traders shook off a day of mostly sour economic news.
The Federal Reserve released minutes of its December meeting, which showed that the panel sees a potential for inflation to linger. The minutes mention “recent elevated inflation readings” and a “high degree of uncertainty” in emerging economic data. Inflation has risen in two consecutive months.
All told, the word “uncertainty” appeared nine times in the Fed minutes, hardly a comforting sign for forecasters.
“Inflation is the wild card in 2025. There are lots of things that potentially have the risk to shift inflation back upward,” said Charlie Ripley, senior investment strategist for Allianz Investment Management, speaking to Reuters.
Earlier, a private-sector jobs report from ADP, the payment processing firm, showed a slower pace of job creation in December, and slower wage growth.
“The labor market downshifted to a more modest pace of growth in the final month of 2024, with a slowdown in both hiring and pay gains,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP.
And then there was the CNN report that President-elect Donald Trump might declare a “national economic emergency” to allow for import tariffs. An emergency declaration would allow him to tax imports with a relatively free hand.
