Stock market today: Wall Street heads lower on the first trading day of 2024

NEW YORK — (AP) — With the robust gains of 2023 in the rear view mirror, Wall Street was poised to open with losses on the first trading day of 2024.

Futures for the S&P 500 lost 0.8% before the bell Tuesday, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 0.6%.

Investors and economists will get a trove of employment data this week, with the government reporting on November job openings Wednesday, weekly jobless claims Thursday and the closely-watched December jobs report on Friday.

Stocks fell Friday on Wall Street from their near all-time highs amid easing inflation, a resilient economy and the prospect of lower interest rates which buoyed investors.

Elsewhere, Hong Kong’s benchmark fell more than 1% and Shanghai also declined after data showed more signs of weakness in the Chinese manufacturing and property sectors.

The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong sank 1.6% to 16,784.00 and the Shanghai Composite index dropped 0.4% to 2,962.28.

Investors were selling property developers like debt-laden China Evergrande, which fell 6%, and LongFor Group Holding, which lost 6.9%. Sino-Ocean Holding declined 4.6%.

The December survey of the official purchasing managers index, or PMI, in China fell to 49 for the third consecutive month, signaling weak demand and underscoring the challenging economic conditions in the world's second-largest economy.

That contrasted private-sector survey, by financial publication Caixin, which registered a slight improvement in the manufacturing PMI to 50.8, driven by increased output and new orders. However, it showed that business confidence for 2024 remained subdued.

The latest data also showed that the value of new home sales by China's top 100 developers fell nearly 35% from a year earlier in December despite moves by regulators to lift limits on such transactions.

South Korea’s Kospi gained 0.6% to 2,669.81 and the S&P/ASX 200 in Australia rose 0.5% to 7,627.80.

Bangkok’s SET added 1.2% while the Sensex in Mumbai lost 0.5%.

Japan’s markets were closed for a holiday.

In Europe at midday, Germany’s DAX and the FTSE in London each slid 0.5% while the CAC 40 in Paris tumbled 0.8%.

In other trading, U.S. benchmark crude oil gained $1.66 to $73.31 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, the international standard, added $1.52 to $78.56 per barrel.

The U.S. dollar rose to 142.11 Japanese yen from 140.88 yen. The euro fell to $1.0958 from $1.1047.

Bitcoin climbed to $45,441, its highest level since April of 2022.

On Friday, the S&P 500 slipped 0.3%. The benchmark index still posted a rare ninth consecutive week of gains and is just 0.6% shy of an all-time high set in January of 2022. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.1% and the Nasdaq composite slipped 0.6%.

Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.