Wall Street retreats on mixed economic data, ASX set to slide

While crude oil prices continued to fall on Wall Street, the biggest losses came from companies in the oil sector.

Expectations that companies will pump enough oil to meet world demand have pushed the barrel price of US crude oil to its lowest level since 2021. Like international standard Brent crude oil, this price fell 2.7 percent overnight. US crude oil settled at $55.27 per barrel and Brent settled at $58.92.

This caused APA’s shares to fall 5.2 percent. Marathon Petroleum fell 4.7 percent and Halliburton fell 4.3 percent due to some big losses on Wall Street.

Meanwhile, AI technology stocks have been mixed after dominating the market in recent days.

Oracle increased by 2 percent and Broadcom by 0.4 percent. Although both reported stronger profits than analysts expected in the latest quarter, both suffered sharp losses last week.

But CoreWeave, which leases access to top-of-the-line AI chips, fell 3.9 percent.

Questions remain about whether all the spending on AI technology will produce the kind of profits and productivity that are worth the expense.

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Shares of Warner Bros. Discovery tumbled 2.7 percent amid reports that the company plans to reject a hostile takeover offer from Paramount Skydance due to concerns about financing and other terms.

After discussing and reviewing the Paramount offer, Warner Bros. board still thinks the company’s deal with Netflix offers greater value, said sources close to the talks, who asked not to be named discussing confidential information. Paramount’s shares fell 1 percent, while Netflix rose 0.9 percent.

Elsewhere on Wall Street, Pfizer fell 3.4 percent after forecasting profits in 2026 that were below what some analysts expected. Next year’s revenue forecast was close to analysts’ expectations.

Kraft Heinz gained 0.7 percent after it said Kellanova’s most recent CEO, Steve Cahillane, would take over as CEO on January 1. Following Kraft Heinz’s split into two companies, which is expected to occur in the second half of 2026, Cahillane will head up which will retain the Heinz, Philadelphia and Kraft Mac & Cheese brands.

In other international markets, indices fell across much of Europe and Asia.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 index fell 1.6 percent ahead of expectations that the Bank of Japan will raise interest rates at the end of this week.

Other markets in Asia have also experienced some of the sharper fluctuations in the world. While the Kospi index in South Korea fell by 2.2 percent, the indices fell by 1.5 percent in Hong Kong and 1.1 percent in Shanghai.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 4.14 percent from 4.18 percent at the end of Monday.

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The Market Summary newsletter is a summary of the day’s transactions. Let’s each take ittoday afternoon.