Market Snapshot: U.S. stocks on track for weekly losses, may snap two weeks of gains after wholesale inflation data

All three major benchmarks were down for the week, on track to snap two straight weeks of gains, according to FactSet data. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was heading for a weekly decline of 2%, while the S&P 500 was heading for a 2.6% drop and the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite was on pace to fall around 3%, FactSet data showed, at last check.

“Last week’s rally was overdone, and I think we’ve spent this week largely giving it back,” said Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers, in a phone interview Friday. “The market recognized that it overshot last week in response to” Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s Nov. 30 remarks at the Brookings Institution, where he indicated the Fed may slow the pace of its interest-rate hikes at its policy meeting this month, said Sosnick.

Equities trading has been choppy Friday after the U.S. producer price index showed wholesale prices rose 0.3% in November, which was above the forecast from economists polled by The Wall Street Journal for a 0.2% gain. The pace of producer-price growth for October and September was also revised higher.

“The market is doing its best to shrug it off,” said Sosnick. The month-over-month rise in wholesale inflation in November wasn’t so hot that “it’s going to freak the market out,” he said.

Meanwhile, equities were encouraged by fresh data Friday from the University of Michigan’s gauge of consumer sentiment, which was stronger than expected this month, according to Sosnick. The reading also showed that consumers’ one-year inflation expectations have come down from November.

“The correlation between the one-year inflationary expectations and the prices of gas is tremendous,” said Sosnick. “When gas goes down, inflationary expectations go down.”

The University of Michigan gauge of consumer sentiment rose to a preliminary December reading of 59.1 from 56.8 in November. Consumers’ inflation expectations over the next year fell to 4.6%, from 4.9% last month.

Market analysts said investors remain focused on next week’s reading from the consumer-price index to gain a fuller view on inflation in November.

“Onward to the CPI number next week, we need to see what happens there,” said John Stoltzfus, chief investment strategist at Oppenheimer.

At this point, Interactive Brokers chief strategist Sosnick said that he still is expecting the Fed to slow its reduce its next interest rate hike this month to 50 basis points, down from its recent pace of 75 basis-point increases. The Fed, which has been aggressively raising rates to battle high inflation in the U.S., has a policy meeting scheduled for Dec. 13-14.

See: The hottest U.S. jobs market in years is cooling off — but it’s still glowing red

Stocks in focus

• Netflix Inc. 
  NFLX,
  +4.77%
  shares saw a modest pop on Friday after an analyst upgrade.

• Shares of Walt Disney Company 
  DIS,
  +1.58%
  were the best-performers on the Dow as the company made its debut its ad-supported streaming tier.

• Microsoft Corp.
  MSFT,
  -0.18%
  shares were in focus after the company announced in a Friday morning blog post that it had acquired Lumenisity Limited, which makes hollow core fiber solutions, as its battle with the FTC over the Activision Blizzard Inc.
  ATVI,
  +0.72%
  deal deepens.

—Jamie Chisholm contributed to this article.