Wall Street's hot start to the year cools as stocks drift
- - Wall Street's hot start to the year cools as stocks drift
January 7, 2026 at 3:19 PM
0
Joseph Stevens works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street’s hot start to the year is cooling a bit on Wednesday.
The S&P 500 was virtually unchanged in early trading, coming off its latest all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 18 points, or less than 0.1%, to its own record set the day before, while the Nasdaq composite was 0.1% higher, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time.
Moves were relatively quiet across the U.S. stock market, including for Warner Bros. Discovery after it again rejected a buyout bid from Paramount and told its shareholders to stick with a rival offer from Netflix.
Warner Bros. Discovery was flat, while Paramount Skydance slipped 0.4% and Netflix rose 1.1%.
In the oil market, crude prices fell after President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Venezuela would provide 30 million to 50 million barrels of oil to the United States. A barrel of benchmark U.S. crude dropped 1.1% to $56.52. Brent crude, the international standard, fell a more modest 0.4% to $60.42 per barrel.
Prices for oil have swung through the week following Trump’s weekend move against Venezuela, which is likely sitting on some of the largest deposits of oil in the world.
Any additional oil flowing from Venezuela into the global system would push down on crude prices by increasing their supplies. Oil prices had already earlier fallen back to where they were in 2021 because of expectations of plentiful supplies. But to pull much more oil from the Venezuelan ground would likely require big investments to improve aging infrastructure.
In the bond market, Treasury yields eased after a report suggested employers outside of the government added 41,000 more jobs last month than they cut. That’s a return to growth for the survey by ADP, but Wall Street often waits for the U.S. Labor Department’s more comprehensive monthly numbers to fully react. That will come on Friday.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.13% from 4.18% late Tuesday.
The hope on Wall Street is that the job market remains solid enough for the economy to avoid a recession but not so strong that it keeps the Federal Reserve from cutting interest rates. The Fed cut its main interest rate three times last year to shore up the slowing job market, but it’s indicated fewer cuts may be ahead because inflation stubbornly remains above its 2% target.
Lower interest rates can worsen inflation, while also giving the economy and investment prices a boost.
In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed among some sharp moves across Europe and Asia.
Indexes dropped 0.8% in London, 0.9% in Hong Kong and 1.1% in Tokyo, while rising 0.6% in Seoul.
___
AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed.
Source: “AOL Money”
