NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is drifting higher as gains for Ralph Lauren and others help offset drops for Ford Motor and Qualcomm following their latest profit reports. The S&P 500 was up 0.2% in early trading Thursday following healthy gains for stock markets across most of Europe and Asia. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 71 points, and the Nasdaq composite was up 0.1%. Tapestry, the company behind the Coach and Kate Spade brands, soared after reporting stronger profit than analysts expected. Ralph Lauren also jumped after reporting stronger profit and revenue than expected. Growth was particularly strong in China.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
Trading on Wall Street is mixed and subdued with the arrival of more quarterly financial reports from major corporations and new data on the U.S. jobs market due over the final two days of the week.
Futures for the S&P 500 and Dow Jones industrials shifted between tiny gains and losses before the bell Thursday, while Nasdaq futures fell back 0.2%.
Industrial conglomerate Honeywell slipped 3.6% in premarket after announcing that it will split into three independent, publicly-traded companies, following in the footsteps of General Electric and Alcoa.
The North Carolina company, one of the few U.S. conglomerates still in existence, expects to complete the spin-off of its automation and aerospace technologies businesses sometime in late 2026.
Ford tumbled 6.1% after it forecast weaker-than-expected earnings growth this year and more losses in its electric vehicles business. The automaker has been grappling with stubbornly high warranty expenses and lagging cost-cutting efforts.
Hershey gained 1.5% after the chocolate maker posted strong earnings but warned of continued cost pressures this year due to surging cocoa prices.
The U.S. on Thursday will issue its latest figures on the number of Americans who applied for jobless benefits last week. The report is considered a proxy for layoffs, but doesn't carry the weight of the government's more comprehensive monthly jobs report, which comes Friday.
Also on Thursday, the Bank of England cut its main interest rate for the third time in six months with the British economy struggling to post any meaningful growth. The maneuver reflects some concern about the outlook for the British economy, which has barely grown over the past six months. In forecasts accompanying the decision, the bank halved its growth projection for the British economy to 0.75%.
Britain’s FTSE 100 jumped 1.6%, while France's CAC 40 and Germany's DAX both rose 0.8%.
In Asia, Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 gained 0.6% to finish at 39,066.53. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 surged 1.2% to 8,520.70. South Korea’s Kospi edged up 1.1% to 2,536.75. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 1.4% to 20,891.62, while the Shanghai Composite added 1.3% to 3,270.66.
In Japan, shares of Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Corp. both rose after Japanese media said they were ditching their talks to set up a joint holding company. Neither company confirmed the report. An update on the talks is expected by mid-February, but no date has been set.
Chinese stocks have performed well lately following news on Chinese tech startup DeepSeek, which seems to have caught up with American companies at the forefront of generative AI at a fraction of the cost.
Uncertainty is also hanging over the global economy because of President Donald Trump’s tariffs. After rocking financial markets around the world at the start of this week, worries about a potentially punishing global trade war have eased a bit after Trump gave 30-day reprieves for tariffs on both Mexico and Canada. That bolstered hopes that Trump sees tariffs as merely a tool for negotiation, rather than as a long-term policy.
“Traders are closely watching for potential talks between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Trump. Although no call has taken place yet, markets may find some relief in the absence of new trade hostilities,” said Anderson Alves at ActivTrades.
Trump has pressed ahead with tariffs on Chinese goods, and some believe there is potential for tariffs to hit autos from the European Union. That could drive a one-time boost to inflation, which could leave a widely followed measure of underlying inflation trends at 2.6% in December, above the Federal Reserve’s target of 2%.
Benchmark U.S crude added 36 cents to $71.39 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, rose 34 cents to $74.95 a barrel.
The U.S. dollar fell to 152.40 Japanese yen from 152.55 yen. The euro cost $1.0360, down from $1.0407.
___
Yuri Kageyama And Matt Ott, The Associated Press
