MARKET SNAPSHOT

U.S. stocks ended mixed, with the Dow industrials snapping a four-day winning streak. Treasury yields rose ahead of key indicators and a string of speeches from Fed officials. The dollar rose and gold set another record-high close. Oil futures fell as optimism over the China stimulus plan faded.

MARKET WRAPS

EQUITIES

U.S stocks turned weaker, erasing some recent gains in the absence of any major new catalyst to keep driving share prices higher.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.7% to snap a four-day winning streak. The S&P 500 slipped 0.2%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite ticked up less than 0.1%.

Blue-chip stocks endured the brunt of the selling pressure. The day was light on economic data and corporate earnings reports, and a slightly better-than-expected reading on new home sales did little to move markets.

In Asian trading, Chinese shares ended higher amid continued positive sentiment after policymakers injected CNY500 billion aimed at helping securities, funds and insurance companies use the central bank's funds to buy stocks. Brokers and bank stocks led the gains.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index closed 1.2% higher, the Shenzhen Composite Index gained 1.2%, and the ChiNext Price Index added 1.6%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index closed 0.7% higher as investors digested China's latest stimulus measures.

Japan's Nikkei Stock Average edged 0.2% lower in likely position adjustments after earlier swinging between mild gains and losses. Yen strength, which typically reduces the overseas earnings of Japanese exporters when repatriated to Japan, may have also weighed on the domestic equity market.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 closed 0.2% lower. Mining stocks continued to surge following China's announcement of economic stimulus, but banks fell again amid fading hopes of near-term Australian interest-rate cuts.

New Zealand's NZX-50 fell 0.65%, hitting its lowest closing level since July 16. The NZX-50 has lost almost 5% since the start of last week as investors worry about a local economy that has been slipping in and out of recession.

COMMODITIES

Oil futures finished lower, pulling back from strong gains a day earlier when China's announcement of an aggressive monetary stimulus plan sparked a broad commodities rally.

West Texas Intermediate crude for November delivery fell 2.6% to settle at $69.69 a barrel -- the lowest since Sept. 13. November Brent crude, the global benchmark, lost 2.3% to $73.46 a barrel.

The rally on Tuesday, spurred by the announcement of Chinese stimulus measures, has fizzled, said the Kansas City energy team at StoneX, led by Alex Hodes. "Expectations are that this round of stimulus won't be sufficient to buoy the sluggish economy," they said.

Front-month Comex September gold gained 0.3% to $2659.20 -- up for six consecutive sessions and setting another record high.

Prices are expected to rise further, said Peter Cardillo of Spartan Capital Securities. Cardillo maintained a short-term price target of $2,700 an ounce for gold, potentially rising to $3,000 an ounce longer-term.

TODAY'S TOP HEADLINES

New-home sales retreat after big jump in prior month

The numbers: Sales of newly built homes in the U.S. dipped in August, as home buyers pulled back in the face of high interest rates and home prices.

Sales of newly built homes in the U.S. fell 4.7% to an annual rate of 716,000 in August, from a revised 751,000 in the prior month, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday.

The number is seasonally adjusted and refers to how many homes would be built over an entire year if builders continue at the same pace every month.

House Passes Bill Averting Government Shutdown Before Election

WASHINGTON-The House passed a measure late Wednesday funding federal agencies until late December and sending the matter to the Senate, moving to take a politically risky government shutdown off the table until after the election.

Lawmakers voted 341 to 82 to approve the measure, despite continued grumbling from some rank-and-file GOP members over the lack of spending cuts and leaders' routine use of short-term patches. Under fast-track procedures employed by leaders to bypass internal Republican disagreements, the vote required a two-thirds supermajority.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) again relied heavily on Democratic votes to get the bill approved in his chamber, a once-rare circumstance that has become commonplace this Congress amid deep divisions in the Republican conference. All Democrats voted for the measure, as did a majority of Republicans, though more than 80 were opposed.

Micron Stock Jumps on Strong Results. 'Robust AI Demand' Is Boosting Revenue.

Shares of Micron Technology jumped in late trading on Wednesday after the company reported better-than-expected results.

The company said revenue was up 93% in its latest quarter versus a year ago thanks to "robust AI demand."

For the quarter ending August 29, the memory chip maker reported revenue of $7.75 billion and adjusted earnings of $1.18 per share. Wall Street was expecting revenue of $7.65 billion with adjusted EPS of $1.11.

OpenAI Chief Technology Officer Resigns

OpenAI's chief technology officer Mira Murati, said Wednesday she was resigning, the latest in a string of departures among top executives at the company behind ChatGPT.

Murati was one of Chief Executive Sam Altman's top deputies and handled much of the day-to-day management of the company, according to current and former employees.

Over the past few months, OpenAI's co-founder and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, co-founder and former top researcher John Schulman, and former top researcher Jan Leike all resigned. In addition, co-founder and former president Greg Brockman recently took a leave of absence through the end of the year.

Google Files EU Antitrust Complaint Against Microsoft

Google said it has filed a formal complaint against Microsoft with the European Union's top antitrust regulator, escalating a long-running dispute over the cloud-computing business.

In the complaint, the search giant accuses Microsoft of abusing its market power in enterprise software to push businesses to use its Azure cloud platform-and keep them locked in there.

The antitrust complaint is a turnaround for Google, which nearly two decades ago became a sustained target of EU antitrust action in part stemming from complaints supported by Microsoft. The two companies for a time made peace, but that accord has unraveled in recent years. This is the latest broadside.

Expected Major Events for Thursday

01:30/AUS: Aug Job Vacancies