A fairly bright start is already losing impetus as investors wait on unit labor cost data due out later today.
The S&P 500 was up four points (0.2%) at 2,106 and the Nasdaq Composite was also up four points (0.1%), at 5,165, while the Dow Jones 30 share was up 35 points (0.2%) at 17,903.
“The second quarter saw unit labor costs fall by 1.4% as productivity increased much more than the 1.8% increase in compensation. While this isn’t ideal, the fact that the decline in costs is due to high levels of productivity and not poor wage growth is important. Moreover, across the last four quarters, unit labor costs rose by 1.7%, which is consistent with inflation heading back towards the Fed’s target,” said Craig Erlam at spread betting firm OANDA.
“While higher unit labour costs would be better and this would then be passed on to the consumer and lift inflation, if the numbers can remain in line with the last four quarters, I think it will be good enough for the Fed. Of course, this will just be one of many measures the Fed looks to for signs of future price inflation,” Erlam opined.
On the corporate front, shares in social media giant Facebook’s (NASDAQ:FB) are the most widely traded.
The thief-of-time's quarterly financial results statement met another significant yardstick as it passed the one billion mark for daily active users (DAU).
Tallying DAUs at 1.01bn in the month of September it represents a 17% increase year-on-year, and perhaps telling of the trend towards smart phones and tablets the figure for mobile DAU’s amounted to 894mln.
Facebook shares were up 6% at US$110.18.
There has been a bit of sniffiness about the appointment of Stefan Larsson as the new chief executive of high-fashion firm Ralph Lauren (NYSE:RL) but the former boss of Old Navy has got off to a good start with quarterly earnings ahead of expectations.
Adjusted earnings per share (EPS) slipped to US$2.13 from US$2.25 a year earlier, comfortably ahead of the US$1.74 analysts had been expecting. Reported EPS, which includes one-off items, fell to US$1.86.
The shares were the best performers among blue-chips, jumping almost 20 dollars to US$133.25.
Investors were less keen on Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM), which was 10.6% lower at US$53.81 after a weak outlook statement released last night that completely overshadowed better-than-expected third quarter numbers.
Whole Foods Market (NASDAQ:WFM) had a chunk taken out of its share price after last night's update revealed like-for-like sales were down 0.2% from a year earlier in the quarter ended 27 September.
Earnings of US$1.48 per share on revenue of US$15.39bn for the full year missed estimates of earnings of US$1.67 per share on US$15.42bn in revenue.
The shares declined 5.2% to US$29.15.
Expedia (NASDAQ:EXPE) rose 3.1% to US$138.44, a day after the world's largest online travel agency by bookings agreed to buy vacation rental site HomeAway (NASDAQ:AWAY) for about US$3.9bn in cash and stock. HomeAway shares took off, surging 24% to US$39.66.