US stocks drift ahead of Tuesday’s looming jobs report

NEW YORK AP Wall Street is drifting in mixed trading on Monday ahead of this week s economic reports that could drive where interest rates and thus stock prices go The S P slipped even though a slight majority of stocks within the index rose The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down points or as of p m Eastern time and the Nasdaq composite was lower Helping to keep the sphere in check were stocks in the artificial-intelligence industry which were mixed following their scary swings last week Nvidia the chip company that s become the face of the AI boom added It was one of the strongest forces pushing upward on the S P on Monday after dropping last week Palantir Technologies rose But Oracle sank another following its tumble last week which was its worst in more than seven years Broadcom fell AI stocks have been shaky on worries that the billions of dollars flowing into chips and material centers may not produce a big-enough payoff to make it worth it The doubts are causing cracks for the industry whose earlier surges was the main driver for the U S industry s rally to records Besides AI the main focus on Wall Street this week will be on what several big updates on the U S financial sector s strength say On Tuesday will come the jobs summary for November and economists expect it to show employers added more jobs than they cut during the month Thursday will bring an update on the inflation and economists expect it to show U S consumers paid prices that were higher in November than a year before Such statistics is under the microscope because the Federal Reserve is trying to figure out if a slowing job realm or high inflation is the bigger trouble for the economic system The Fed is in a potentially tough spot because fixing one of those problems by moving interest rates would likely worsen the other in the short term The hope on Wall Street is that the job industry weakens but only by a little enough to get the Fed to lower interest rates but not so much that a recession swamps the market system Wall Street loves lower rates because they can give a boost to the financial system and prices for investments even if they also may worsen inflation With the Fed still appearing to be more focused on labor-market weakness than inflation we re likely facing a bad news is good scenario for the jobs account according to Chris Larkin managing director trading and investing at E-Trade from Morgan Stanley As long as the numbers don t suggest employment is falling off a cliff that would mean the domain would likely welcome soft numbers he stated The spotlight will be brightest on the unemployment rate not the overall job rise numbers because the latter is feeling downward pressure from a drop-off in immigrant workers Economists expect Tuesday s document to show the unemployment rate at which would keep it near its highest and worst level since Treasury yields eased a bit ahead of the updates A record earlier on Monday morning also revealed that a measure of manufacturing strength in New York state unexpectedly weakened when economists expected to see continued upsurge The yield on the -year Treasury slipped to from late Friday Elsewhere on Wall Street shares of iRobot tumbled after the maker of Roomba vacuums declared holders of its stock will likely face a total loss after it filed for Chapter bankruptcy protection over the weekend The company has reached an agreement with its primary contract manufacturer Picea to buy it through a process supervised by a U S bankruptcy court In stock markets abroad indexes rose in Europe following weaker finishes in Asia Indexes fell in Hong Kong and in Shanghai after the Chinese executive informed a drop in commitment in factory equipment infrastructure and other fixed assets It s the latest signal that demand in the world s second-largest market system remains weak Japan s Nikkei sank after a quarterly survey of big manufacturers by the central bank demonstrated a slight improvement in sentiment That could encourage the Bank of Japan to go ahead with a hike to interest rates AP Business Writer Elaine Kurtenbach contributed Source