Stock market today: Wall Street slightly lower in premarket ahead of another US inflation report

AP Business Writers

Wall Street pointed slightly lower early Thursday ahead of the week’s second U.S. inflation report and an expected interest rate cut by the European Central Bank.

Futures for the S&P 500 were down about 0.2%, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.1% before the opening bell, which will be rung by President-elect Donald Trump.

Shares of Adobe tumbled about 11% after the software maker posted a healthy quarterly earnings report but disappointed investors with a lukewarm forecast.

Uber clawed back some of its losses from a day earlier, climbing 3.4% after a company executive gave an optimistic outlook at a conference and highlighted the ride-share company’s push into autonomous vehicles.

Later Thursday, the Labor Department releases data on inflation at the wholesale level, one day after it reported that consumer prices ticked up to 2.7% in November. Though sticky inflation can lead central bankers to raise interest rates or at least keep them elevated, most analysts are still expecting the Fed to cut its benchmark interest rate at its meeting next week.

The Fed began trimming rates in September from a two-decade high to support a slowing job market after getting inflation nearly all the way down to its 2% target. Lower rates would give a boost to the economy and to prices for investments, but they could also provide more fuel for inflation.

Expectations for a series of cuts to rates by the Fed have been one of the main reasons the S&P 500 has set an all-time high 57 times this year, with the latest coming last week.

Also coming Thursday it the government’s latest weekly report on U.S. layoffs.

Global markets were mixed ahead of a decision by the European Central Bank on interest rates that was expected to yield at least a quarter percentage point cut to the current 3.25% benchmark.

Analysts said the monetary authority for the 20 euro currency countries in the European Union was bound to act now that inflation has fallen to target levels and growth is slowing.

Germany’s DAX, the CAC 40 in Paris and Britain’s FTSE 100 were all relatively unchanged before the ECB’s announcement.

Chinese shares rose as leaders met in Beijing to set economic plans and targets for the coming year. The government announced plans to expand trial private pension programs to the entire country, beginning Dec. 15.

The Hang Seng in Hong Kong jumped 1.2% to 20,397.05 and the Shanghai Composite index gained 0.9% to 3,461.50.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index advanced 1.2% to 39,849.14, led by buying of technology shares. Advantest Corp., which makes equipment for testing computer chips, gained 5.1%, while chip maker Tokyo Electron was up 0.6%.

South Korea’s Kospi gained 1.6% to 2,482.12 and the S&P/ASX 200 in Australia slipped 0.3% to 8,330.30.

Taiwan’s Taiex climbed 0.6% and the Sensex in India shed 0.3%. The SET in Bangkok edged 0.1% lower.

In other dealings early Thursday, U.S. benchmark crude oil picked up 22 cents to $70.51 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude oil, the international standard, picked up 16 cents to $73.64 per barrel.

The U.S. dollar fell to 152.25 Japanese yen from 152.46 yen. The euro ticked up to $1.0500 from $1.0496.