Stocks Waver Near Record Highs; Microsoft Gains After OpenAI For-Profit Agreement

U.S. stocks were little changed in early trading on Friday, putting the major indexes on track to round out the week near record highs ahead of next week’s interest rate decision from the Federal Reserve.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) was down 0.1% Friday morning, while the S&P 500 (SPX) traded flat. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (IXIC) inched up about 0.2%. All three major indexes closed at record highs yesterday after consumer price data came in as Wall Street expected, reinforcing investor confidence that rate cuts are imminent.

This week’s inflation data painted a muddy picture of tariff impacts. Whole prices unexpectedly declined in August, while consumer goods and services inflation accelerated to its fastest pace since January. Nonetheless, traders are confident the data won’t prevent the Fed from cutting interest rates next Wednesday to support an increasingly shaky labor market.

Shares of Microsoft (MSFT) rose about 1% in early trading after it reached an agreement with OpenAI that paves the way for the ChatGPT maker, currently a nonprofit with which Microsoft has a complex revenue and profit-sharing agreement, to convert to a for-profit company.

Other large tech stocks were mixed. Tesla (TSLA) shares rose 5% after surging 6% yesterday. Apple (AAPL) gained about 1%, and Nvidia (NVDA) inched higher. Alphabet (GOOG), Amazon (AMZN), Meta Platforms (META), and Broadcom (AVGO) were all marginally lower.

Shares of Adobe (ADBE) slipped 1%, giving up premarket gains after the design software maker reported better-than-expected quarterly results on strong “AI-first” product sales. Shares of furniture maker RH (RH) dipped after it trimmed its sales forecast and delayed the launch of a new product line, both of which it attributed to tariffs.

Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) shares rose nearly 10%, continuing to rise after soaring yesterday following reports competitor Paramount Skydance (PSKY) was preparing a takeover offer.

Treasury yields were up Friday morning, with the yield on the 10-year note, which influences interest rates on all kinds of consumer and commercial loans, rising to 4.06% from 4.03%. Yields slid yesterday as traders bet the morning’s unsurprising inflation report further cemented a rate cut next week.

Gold futures were recently up 0.4% at $3,685 an ounce, slightly below the all-time high set earlier this week. West Texas Intermediate futures, the U.S. crude oil benchmark, rose 1.4% to $63.25 a barrel, erasing yesterday’s losses.

Bitcoin recently traded at $115,000 after hitting an overnight high of $116,300. The cryptocurrency has been trending upward throughout September, inching closer to its all-time high of more than $124,000 from mid-August.

The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the value of the greenback against a basket of foreign currencies, was up 0.2% at 97.75.