By Daniel Shvartsman
Investing.com - Markets drifted higher in thin trading Friday morning on their way to a quiet closing of a rocky holiday week.
As of 11:43 ET (16:43 GMT), the NASDAQ Composite was trading down just .1%, after being down over a percent earlier in the day, while the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average were each up about 0.3%.
The Core PCE index reading came in at 4.7% year over year, in line with expectations and down from 5% last month, adding fuel to the hope that inflation is on the downward swing.
The last trading days of the year are often marked by slower trading and tax-loss selling, and that seemed to weigh on certain big names. Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) traded down nearly 2% despite CEO Elon Musk's assurance he wouldn't sell any more Tesla shares for two years, marking a new 52-week low for the stock. Carnival Cruises (NYSE:CCL) was among the other leading losers on the S&P 500, down 3%.
A bevy of energy names traded higher, following crude oil's rise. Hess Corporation (NYSE:HES), ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP), and APA Corporation (NASDAQ:APA) were the key gainers, each up about 3.7% on the day.
Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META) traded flat despite facing estimate cuts from Needham & Company. And AMC Entertainment Holdings Preferred Units (NYSE:APE) spiked 43% while AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc (NYSE:AMC) common stock dropped 11.3% as the market continues to digest a planned conversion of APE to AMC along with a reverse stock split of AMC.
The U.S. market's muted trading comes in the wake of record outflows from equity positions as tracked by Bank of America.
And while the week has been volatile, with three days of more than 0.9% moves in the S&P 500, Friday trading has the market on pace to close the week in line with where it started, before the three-day Christmas holiday weekend.
(Article published at 10:35 am ET (15:35 GMT), updated at 11:49am ET (16:49 GMT))