ASX set to dip, Wall Street hovers near record

11 hours ago 3

By Stan Choe

December 8, 2025 — 5.22am

Wall Street rose to the edge of its all-time high on Friday.

The S&P 500 added 0.2 per cent and finished just 0.3 per cent shy of its record closing level, which was set in October. It had briefly topped the mark during the day, before paring its gain.

Wall Street advanced on Friday to the cusp of a new record.

The Dow Jones added 104 points, or 0.2 per cent, and the Nasdaq composite gained 0.3 per cent. The Australian sharemarket is set to retreat, with futures pointing to a fall of 13 points, or 0.2 per cent, at the open. The Australian dollar was trading at US66.35¢ at 5.18am AEDT.

The modest moves capped a quiet week for Wall Street, offering a respite following weeks of sharp and scary swings.

Ulta Beauty helped lead the market and jumped 12.7 per cent after the retailer reported stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than expected. CEO Kecia Steelman said its customers are broadly feeling pressure, but Ulta saw growth across its categories, particularly in e-commerce. It raised its forecast for revenue over the full year.

Another encouraging signal for the holiday shopping season came from Victoria’s Secret & Co. It delivered a milder loss for the latest quarter than analysts expected, and it likewise raised its forecast for sales over the full year. Its stock rallied 18 per cent.

Warner Bros. Discovery rose 6.3 per cent after Netflix said it would buy Warner Bros. for $US72 billion ($109 billion) in cash and stock following its pending split from Discovery Global.

The deal for the company behind HBO Max, “Casablanca” and “Harry Potter” is not a sure thing, though. It could raise fears at the US government about too much industry power residing at Netflix.

Shares of Netflix fell 2.9 per cent. Paramount Skydance, which earlier had been seen as a front-runner to buy Warner Bros., sank 9.8 per cent.

Also on the losing end of Wall Street was SoFi Technologies. The financial technology company fell 6.1 per cent to $US27.78 after saying it would add $US1.5 billion worth of its stock into the market in order to raise cash. It’s selling the stock at a price of $US27.50 per share.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 13.28 points to 6,870.40. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 104.05 to 47,954.99, and the Nasdaq composite gained 72.99 to 23,578.13.

If the S&P 500 does return to a record, it would mark the latest time the US stock market has powered past what seemed to be a debilitating set of worries. Most recently, those concerns centred on what the Federal Reserve will do with interest rates, whether too many dollars are flowing into artificial-intelligence technology and if sharp drops for cryptocurrencies would bleed over into other markets.

After some back and forth, the widespread expectation among traders is now that the Fed will cut its main interest rate next week in hopes of shoring up the slowing US job market. If it does, that would be the third cut of the year.

Investors love lower interest rates because they boost prices for investments and can juice the economy. The downside is that they can worsen inflation, which is stubbornly remaining above the Fed’s 2 per cent target.

Economic reports released on Friday did little to change expectations for a coming cut. One said that an underlying measure of inflation that the Fed prefers to use was at 2.8 per cent in September, exactly as economists expected.

A separate report said US consumers appear to be downgrading their expectations for inflation coming in the near future. They’re now forecasting 4.1 per cent inflation for the year ahead, down from their forecast of 4.5 per cent last month, according to the University of Michigan.

That’s the lowest such forecast since January, which is important because heightened expectations for inflation can create a vicious cycle that only worsens inflation.

In the bond market, Treasury yields climbed. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.13 per cent from 4.11 per cent late Thursday.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed in Europe and Asia.

Germany’s DAX returned 0.6 per cent, and South Korea’s Kospi jumped 1.8 per cent for two of the world’s bigger gains.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell 1.1 per cent after data showed household spending in Japan fell 3.0 per cent in October from a year earlier. It was the sharpest drop since January 2024. Japanese markets have been shaky recently after the Bank of Japan hinted that hikes to interest rates may be coming.