Stocks came off their highs in afternoon trading.

Shortly into the 2 o’clock hour, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 72 points, or 0.2%. The S&P 500 slid 0.04%, while the Nasdaq Composite was off by 0.05%.

At session highs, the Dow climbed 130.17 points, or 0.35%. The S&P 500 gained 0.55%, and the Nasdaq was up by 0.56%.

— Sarah Min

Spurred by cooler inflation data, the S&P 500 added to its year-end rally during Friday’s trading session.

Within the index, 37 stocks hit new 52-week highs.

13 of these names hit new all-time highs. Here’s a look at the stocks that reached the milestone:

— Christopher Hayes, Lisa Kailai Han

Biotech stocks outperformed Friday after Bristol Myers Squibb said it would buy biotech company Karuna Therapeutics in a deal valued at $14 billion.

The Nasdaq Biotechnology Index (NBI) rose 2.7% in midday trading. In 2023, the index underperformed, just up 2% compared to the S&P 500’s 23% advance, as higher interest rates dimmed the outlook for biotech companies.

But BTIG’s Jonathan Krinsky noted the breakout is a promising sign for the index, which was down for the previous two years.

“As a result of the move, the Nasdaq Biotech Index (NBI) is back into positive territory for the year. It was down in ’21 and ’22, and back to 1993 it has never had three consecutive down years,” Krinsky wrote Friday. “While we can’t predict how the last few days of the year will go, the move today is encouraging as it comes very close to breaking out of a multi-year base above 4400.”

The NBI was last at around the 4,300 level.

— Sarah Min, Michael Bloom

Nike is on track to post its worst session in more than a year, underscoring the strength of the post-earnings selloff.

The athletic retailer’s shares tumbled about 11% in midday trading. If that holds through the market’s close, it would mark the biggest one-day loss for the stock since Sept. 30, 2022, when shares finished 12.8% lower.

Friday’s selloff comes a day after the company offered poor sales guidance and announced cost cuts. Concerns about Nike reverberated across the sports retail space, with stocks including Foot Locker and Dick’s also trading significantly lower.

The Nasdaq Composite and concentrated Nasdaq-100 are up 1.1% and 1.4% this week, respectively, putting the indices on pace for an eighth straight winning week.

Micron Technology is one of the biggest winners in the Nasdaq-100, gaining 7% following a strong quarterly report. Alphabet shares have also rallied nearly 7%, while Meta Platforms and Atlassian have added about 5% each.

Ansys is on pace for the biggest weekly gain in the index, jumping 14%. Shares of the engineering software company have rallied on news that its exploring a possible sale. Moderna‘s jumped 11%, while Illumina shares are headed for a 10% weekly surge.

— Samantha Subin

These are the stocks moving the most in midday trading:

• Nike, Foot Locker — Shares of Nike plummeted 10% after the athletic apparel company slashed its revenue outlook and announced it would cut around $2 billion in costs over the next three years. Foot Locker, which sells Nike products in its stores, slid nearly 5%.
• Rocket Lab — Shares of Rocket Lab soared 24%. The space company posted a regulatory filing on Thursday, indicating that its subsidiary had signed a contract worth $515 million with the U.S. government to design, manufacture and operate 18 space vehicles.
• Coinbase — Shares of the crypto exchange added nearly 5% after a bullish outlook from JMP.

Read the full list of stocks moving here.

— Lisa Kailai Han

Friday marked the official start of the Santa Claus rally, a phenomenon when stocks rise in the final 5 trading days of the year and the first 2 days of the new year, as defined by the Stock Trader’s Almanac.

Historically, the Santa Claus rally has an almost 80% success rate, with just 2 years in the past 10 seeing S&P 500 declines during the period. Stocks have gained an average 1.3% during the rally since 1950, higher than any other consecutive seven-day trading period.

Stocks have already kicked off with a bang, as all three major stock indexes rose during Friday’s trading session to head for their eight straight week of gains.

This year’s Santa Claus rally will wrap up on Wednesday, January 3.

— Lisa Kailai Han, Robert Hum, Bob Pisani

One sector of the S&P 500 has fallen behind the pack this week: Utilities.

Down 0.7%, the sector is the only of the broad index’s 11 pacing to end lower. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 as a whole is set to finish the week up 0.9%.

Pinnacle West Capital led the sector lower, dropping about 3%. Dominion and Constellation were the next worst performers, with each posting slides of more than 2%.

Some utilities names were able to buck the downtrend. NRG has added more than 2% so far in the week, while Ameren was another top performer with a 1.5% gain.

Still, the retreat among utilities stocks erased some of the gains seen elsewhere. Notably, communication services, the best performing index this week, jumped more than 4%. The sector was helped by rallies among big technology names including Alphabet, Meta and Netflix.

The benchmark index is heading for its eight-straight positive week — a length not seen since 2017.

— Alex Harring

D.A. Davidson analysts led by Gary Tenner named KeyCorp, Synovus Financial, Washington Federal, Western Alliance Bancorp and WSFS Financial as their top regional bank picks for 2024 in a note out Friday.

After a “tumultuous” 2023, “the group is broadly on firm footing entering 2024. We anticipate quarterly revenue trends to be positive, as funding costs stabilize and asset yields reprice higher, even with the possibility of a Fed easing cycle that we think is likely a 2H24 event,” Tenner wrote. “Valuations remain attractive on an absolute (11.7x 2024E) and relative (60% of the S&P forward P/E) basis. We favor names with a positive revenue growth outlook, strong or improving capital, and stable credit.”

KeyCorp, for example, offers 19% upside to Davidson’s $17 price target (based on an expected P/E multiple of 10.5x 2025 EPS), and pays a 6% dividend yield which Tenner’s team is “confident is safe.”

— Scott Schnipper, Michael Bloom

Nike is tracking to end Friday lower as investors digested the athletic retailer’s latest earnings report. It’s not unusual for the stock.

Shares are down more than 10% in Friday’s session, a day after the company slashed its sales outlook and announced cost-cutting measures. The company also reported worse-than-expected revenue for the second quarter in a row, the first time there’s been consecutive misses on the line since 2016.

Nike has ended all but one of its last 20 post-earnings trading sessions with losses, according to data analyzed by Bespoke Investment Group. The sole positive day followed Nike’s report for the second quarter of 2021, during which the company beat expectations on both lines and raised its outlook.

— Alex Harring

The S&P 500 advance was broad-based, with 441 names gaining in the broader index in midday trading. Ten out of 11 sectors were trading in positive territory, led by utilities and real estate, but consumer discretionary was negative.

Utilities was the best-performing sector in the S&P 500, up about 1%. Evergy and Dominion Energy were among the names outperforming in the sector, up more than 1.6%, each.

Real estate also outperformed, up 0.9%. UDR and Mid-America Apartment Communities were up by more than 1.6%, each.

— Sarah Min

New single-family house sales notched a seasonally adjusted rate of 590,000, the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development said on Friday. The November reading is roughly 12% below October’s revised 672,000. The median sales price for the month was $434,700, the report said.

The November home sales data is above the year ago period of 582,000 in November of 2022.

— Brian Evans

The S&P 500 opened higher Friday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 3 points, or about 0.01%. The S&P 500 gained 0.3%, and the Nasdaq Composite was higher by 0.4%.

— Sarah Min

Durable goods orders — which include long-lasting items such as airplanes and appliances — ticked up 5.4% higher in November, beating the 2% estimate given by economists polled by Dow Jones.

This comes on the heels of a 5.1% decline in October.

Excluding a sharp rise in transportation, new orders only increased 0.5%. However, excluding defense, new orders actually rose 6.5%. Transportation equipment let the increase in the overall figure.

— Lisa Kailai Han

The Federal Reserve’s favored inflation gauge showed prices rise less than expected in November.

The core personal consumption expenditures price index rose 3.2% in November on an annual basis and 0.1% for the month, the Commerce Department said Friday. Economists polled by Dow Jones had expected prices to increase 0.1% for the month and 3.3% from a year ago.

Consumer expenditures and income also came in line with expectations for November, rising 0.3% and 0.4%, respectively.

— Samantha Subin, Jeff Cox

These are some of the stocks making notable moves in premarket trading on Friday:

• Nike — Shares tumbled 12.1% after the athletic retailer cut its sales guidance and announced plans to pull back costs by around $2 billion. FootLocker, a seller of Nike’s products, fell in sympathy.
• Rocket Lab — Shares jumped 12.6% in Friday’s premarket, one day after the space company disclosed an agreement with a U.S. government customer. The contract, which is valued at $515 million in total, will involve designing, making and managing 18 space vehicles.
• Coinbase — The crypto exchange stock climbed 1.3% on the back of an optimistic call from investment bank JMP.

See the full list here.

— Alex Harring

Pharma giant Bristol Myers Squibb announced Friday it has entered an agreement to acquire Karuna Therapeutics for $14 billion. The deal would bring experimental schizophrenia drug KarXT, which has been accepted for review by the Food and Drug Administration, into Bristol’s portfolio.

“There are tremendous opportunities in neuroscience, and Karuna strengthens our position and accelerates the expansion and diversification of our portfolio in the space,” said Bristol Myers Squibb CEO Christopher Boerner in a statement. “We expect KarXT to enhance our growth through the late 2020s and into the next decade.”

Bristol will pay $330 a share in cash under the terms of the deal, which represents about a 53% premium from Thursday’s close. Shares of Bristol slipped nearly 1.8% in premarket trading, while Karuna soared nearly 50%.

— Michelle Fox

U.S.-listed shares of Chinese video-sharing site BiliBili slumped 11.1% in pre-market trade on Friday, according to Reuters data, after China published draft guidelines aimed at curbing incentives that could lead to excessive gaming and spending.

It follows similar falls by Tencent and NetEase in response to the same development.

— Karen Gilchrist

Tencent and NetEase shares plunged on Friday after China released draft guidelines aimed at curbing incentives that could lead to excessive gaming and spending.

Tencent shares dived more than 13% to their lowest since November 2022.

NetEase slumped over 25% to around HK$120, its lowest since January — breaking below a key technical support offered by a February low.

Read this developing story for more.

— Clement Tan

Bank of Japan board members discussed how to communicate a shift in the central bank’s yield curve control policy in October, the meeting minutes revealed.

The BOJ adjusted its yield curve control policy in October, saying that the the target level of the 10-year Japanese government bond yield will be held at 0%, but it will take the upper limit of 1% “as a reference” instead of a strict cap.

Some members were of the view that despite the move, it was necessary to emphasize that the BOJ still intended to continue with monetary easing with YCC.

One member also said that the bank should make it clear the measure was not intended as preparation for discontinuing YCC and the negative interest rate policy.

Another BOJ board member pointed out that in order to avoid unnecessary market speculation, the bank should clearly explain that its policy decisions were based on the outlook for economic activity and prices.

“This is to avoid encouraging speculative transactions, by giving the impression that the BOJ was forced to make policy decisions to follow fluctuations in market rates,” the member said, according to the minutes.

— Lim Hui Jie

Japan’s headline inflation rate slowed to 2.8% in November — its lowest level since July 2022 — from 3.3% in October.

Core inflation in November, which strips out prices of fresh food, slowed to 2.5% from 2.9%, in line with expectations from economists polled by Reuters.

The so called “core-core” inflation, which strips out prices of both fresh food and energy, came in at 3.8%, down from 4% in October. This is a key metric considered by the Bank of Japan in its monetary policy decisions.

Economic reports on Friday morning will serve as one of the final check-ins on the U.S. consumer and inflation before the end of the year.

At 8:30 a.m. ET, November data for personal income, consumer spending and the personal consumption expenditures report are due out.

Core PCE, which excludes volatile food and energy prices and is the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, is expected to come in at 3.5% over the past 12 months, according to economists surveyed by Dow Jones.

— Jesse Pound

Shares of Nike fell more than 10% in after hours trading on Thursday after the sports apparel company reported weaker-than-expected sales for its fiscal second quarter.

Nike reported $13.39 billion of revenue, below the $13.43 billion expected by analysts, according to LSEG. The company also warned that its revenue outlook for the second half of the year could be “softer.”

As part of the quarterly report, the sneaker giant said it plans to costs by about $2 billion over the next three years.

— Jesse Pound

Stock futures opened lower, with Dow futures down about 95 points.

— Jesse Pound

Here’s where the major averages stand for the week ahead of Friday’s trading:

• The S&P 500 is up 0.58%
• The Nasdaq is up 1.01%
• The Dow is up 0.27%
• The Russell 2000 is up 1.61%

— Jesse Pound