Trading on Wall Street was slightly mixed early Friday as markets try close out another week of gains with companies continuing to post their most recent profits.
Futures for the S&P 500 were up 0.2% before the bell, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average retreated a modest 0.1%.
CVS Health slid about 11% in premarket trading after the retail pharmacy chain and health care company announced that CEO Karen Lynch has stepped down. Lynch will be replaced by David Joyner, who will attempt to steer the health care giant through a worsening environment of rising medical costs.
CVS cut its financial expectations for the third time in August with all major pharmacy chains attempting to navigate a drastically changed landscape, facing competition online and elsewhere.
Tesla shares fell less than 1% after the U.S. government’s road safety agency said it is again investigating the electric car maker’s “Full Self-Driving” system, this time after getting reports of crashes in low-visibility conditions, including one that killed a pedestrian.
Netflix shares climbed 6.5% in extended trading after the video streaming company reported better third-quarter sales and profit than Wall Street was expecting late Thursday, even as subscriber growth slowed dramatically. Netflix forecast revenue growth of 15% in the current quarter, matching the booming sales growth in the July-September period.
More strong economic data from the U.S. this week has boosted hopes that the economy could make a perfect escape from the worst inflation in generations, one that ends without a recession that many investors had seen as nearly inevitable. And with the Federal Reserve now cutting interest rates to keep the economy humming, the expectation among optimists is that stocks can rise even further.
But critics are warning that stock prices look too expensive given how much faster they’ve climbed than corporate profits.
World markets mostly gained after China’s central bank released plans for supporting the stock market through share repurchases by companies and major shareholders.
The Chinese economy slowed further in the last quarter, data released Friday showed. That spurred expectations the government will ramp up its latest stimulus efforts.
The world’s second-largest economy expanded at a 4.6% annual pace in July-September, down slightly from 4.7% in the previous quarter. Growth so far this year has averaged to 4.8%, below the official target of about 5%, as weakness in the property market has continued to weigh on demand.
Meanwhile, the central bank issued guidelines for state banks to provide loans to companies and major shareholders for stock repurchases as part of an effort to stabilize China’s share markets, which have languished in recent years.
The loans, which can be made only by 21 designated financial institutions, will have a maximum interest rate of 2.25%, the People’s Bank of China said in a statement that underscored plans for strict oversight of the effort to support the markets.
The news helped drive a rally in Shanghai, where the Composite index gained 2.9% to 3,261.56. The benchmark for the smaller market in the southern city of Shenzhen jumped 4.1%.
Shanghai’s benchmark has gained 9% in the past three months, though it had surged much higher last month with the release of new measures to counter the slowdown, before falling back as investors registered their disappointment over a lack of big government spending initiatives.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index gained 3.6% to 20,804.11.
Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 edged 0.2% higher to 38,981.75 and the Kospi in Seoul shed 0.6% to 2,593.82. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gave up 0.9% to 8,283.20.
The Taiex in Taiwan gained 1.9% and the SET in Bangkok lost 0.4%. India’s Sensex rose 0.3%.
At midday in Europe, Germany’s DAX rose 0.3%. In Paris, the CAC 40 gained 0.7% and in London, Britain’s FTSE 100 slipped 0.2%.
In other dealings early Friday, U.S. benchmark crude oil gave back 3 cents to $70.06 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, lost 10 cents to $74.34 per barrel.
The dollar fell to 150.05 Japanese yen from 150.21 yen. The euro rose to $1.0852 from $1.0827.
