By Liz Moyer
Investing.com -- U.S. stocks were mixed on Friday after staging a massive rally the day before on the news that inflation cooled in October.
At 9:50 ET (14:50 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 56 points or 0.2%, while the S&P 500 was up 0.3% and the NASDAQ Composite was up 0.5%.
The better-than-expected report on consumer prices on Thursday ignited hopes that the Federal Reserve will ease off its aggressive pace of interest rate increases. The central bank has been monitoring data for signs that its policy moves so far have worked, including four successive rate hikes of 0.75 percentage points.
Many analysts now expect the Fed will raise rates in December, but at a lower half-point pace.
The S&P 500 jumped 5.5% on Thursday and the Nasdaq surged 7.4%, both notching their biggest gains since the early pandemic. The Dow rose more than 1,200 points.
Cryptocurrencies were still getting hammered on Friday, with Bitcoin down another 5% to around $16,526 as the exchange FTX and associated trading arm Alameda filed for bankruptcy and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried stepped down from the role.
On its Singles' Day mega sale, China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd ADR (NYSE:BABA) got a boost when the government said it would relax Covid-related restrictions. Alibaba shares rose 1.3%.
The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment survey for November is expected to show a slight decline later this morning from the October reading, and bond markets are closed today to observe the Veterans Day holiday.
Oil rose. Crude Oil WTI Futures were up 3.6% to $89.68 a barrel, while Brent Oil Futures were up 3% to $96.54 a barrel. Gold Futures were up 0.5% to $1762.