US stocks inch up on Black Friday, with retailers in focus

Wall Street's main indexes opened slightly higher in a shortened Black Friday trading session, on track for monthly gains as the holiday shopping season kickoff brought retail stocks into focus.

Investors scrutinized retailers, expected to attract millions of shoppers with their deep Black Friday discounts, as customers started their year-end holiday shopping.

Adobe Analytics estimated consumers would spend a record $10.8 billion in online purchases on Black Friday 2024, a rise of 9.9% over last year.

Shares of Target rose 1.5%, Hasbro gained 3.7%, Costco climbed 0.8%, Walmart edged up 0.4% and Nike added 0.5%.

"Retailers do a lot of importing. Inventory levels are very important to their profitability and ability to kind of control margins, so they will be one of the industries in the (tariffs) crossfire," said Ross Mayfield, investment strategist at Baird.

"But so far... (things are) looking pretty solid for the Black Friday, Cyber Monday sale."

At 09:49 a.m. the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 140.39 points, or 0.31%, to 44,862.45, the S&P 500 gained 13.80 points, or 0.23%, to 6,012.54 and the Nasdaq Composite was up 47.87 points, or 0.25%, to 19,108.35.

Information technology stocks including Nvidia and Apple helped boost the benchmark S&P 500, while the industrial and financial sectors lifted the blue-chip Dow.

Chip stocks rebounded from Wednesday's declines, sending the Philadelphia SE Semiconductor index up 1.3%.

The small-cap Russell 2000 index rose 0.7% as yields on Treasury bonds retreated further from multi-month highs.

Wall Street's main indexes closed lower on Wednesday, after data showed signs of sticky inflation, bolstering bets the U.S. Federal Reserve could adopt a cautious stance on interest-rate cuts in 2025.

The three main indexes were on track for monthly gains, with the S&P 500 set for its biggest one-month rise since November 2023. The Russell 2000 index hit a record high earlier in the week and was set for its steepest monthly rise so far this year.

Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. presidential election earlier this month, along with his Republican Party winning the majority in both houses of Congress, provided the latest boost to equities.

Investors were pricing in expectations Trump's pro-business policies could spur economic growth and corporate performance. However, concerns prevailed that they could also stoke upside price pressures, slow the pace of the Fed's rate cuts and weigh on global growth.

Traders expect the central bank to lower borrowing costs by 25 basis points at its December meeting, but see it pausing interest-rate cuts in January, according to the CME Group's FedWatch.

Crypto stocks were up as bitcoin climbed 2.5%, trading at about $97,000. MicroStrategy O> rose 4.3%, MARA Holdings added 6.2%, and Bit Digital advanced 7.7%.

Applied Therapeutics plunged 75% after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration declined to approve its drug for the treatment of a rare genetic metabolic disease.

Analysts expect stock moves to be impacted by thin volumes after Thursday's Thanksgiving holiday.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 3.27-to-1 ratio on the NYSE, and by a 2.14-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P 500 posted 19 new 52-week highs and no new lows, while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 75 new highs and 10 new lows.