By STAN CHOE AP Business Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street drifted through mixed trading Thursday as rising fashion and cigarette stocks worked against drops for Ford Motor and Qualcomm.
The S&P 500 rose 0.4% following healthy gains for stock markets across much of Europe and Asia. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 125 points, or 0.3%, and the Nasdaq composite gained 0.5%.
Tapestry, the company behind the Coach and Kate Spade brands, helped lead the market and jumped 12%. It reported stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected after attracting new, younger customers. Tapestry also raised its forecast for revenue and profit growth this fiscal year.
Philip Morris International, which sells Marlboro cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products around the world, was one of the strongest forces pushing upward on the S&P 500 and rallied 10.9% after reporting a better profit than expected. It also gave financial forecasts that topped expectations, and analysts pointed in particular to strength for its Zyn nicotine pouches.
They helped offset a 7.5% drop for Ford Motor, which fell even though the automaker delivered a stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Investors focused instead on Ford’s financial forecasts for 2025, which the company said incorporates “headwinds related to market factors.”
The company gave a forecasted range for how much cash it will generate this year whose midpoint fell below analysts’ expectations, for example.
Qualcomm also kept indexes in check after falling 3.7%. The company, whose products help power smartphones and other devices, reported profit for the latest quarter that topped analysts’ forecasts, and analysts called the performance solid. But they also said expectations were high, and worries are rising about the wireless chip industry broadly.
In the bond market, Treasury yields held relatively steady after a report said more U.S. workers filed for unemployment benefits last week than expected, though the number remains low compared with history. A more comprehensive report will arrive on Friday, showing how many jobs U.S. employers added during the month of January.
The hope is Friday’s data will show a job market that remains solid enough to keep worries about a possible downturn at bay but not so strong that it pushes upward on inflation. The U.S. economy has remained much more solid than critics feared, but pressure is rising in part because of the threat of potential tariffs coming from President Donald Trump.
After rocking financial markets around the world at the start of this week, worries about a potentially punishing global trade war have eased a bit after Trump gave 30-day reprieves for tariffs on both Mexico and Canada.
While discussing Ford Motor’s earnings and financial forecasts, CEO Jim Farley said his company can manage a “few weeks” of tariffs of 25% on Canadian and Mexican imports. But if they’re protracted, they would have “a huge impact on our industry,” resulting in higher prices for customers, losses of U.S. jobs and the elimination of billions of dollars of industry profits.
Elsewhere on Wall Street, another company reliant on spending by consumers around the world, Ralph Lauren, rallied 9.7% after reporting stronger profit and revenue than expected. Growth was particularly strong in China, where the company recently opened stores in Hong Kong and Beijing.
Eli Lilly rose 3.3% after the drugmaker showed how demand for its hot-selling diabetes and obesity treatments is swelling its profits.
Honeywell fell 5.6% and was one of the heaviest weights on the S&P 500. It announced it will split into three independent, publicly-traded companies, following in the footsteps of other conglomerates such as General Electric.
The North Carolina company, one of the few U.S. conglomerates still in existence, expects to complete the spin-off of its automation and aerospace technologies businesses sometime in late 2026.
All told, the S&P 500 rose 22.09 points to 6,083.57. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 125.65 to 44,747.63, and the Nasdaq composite rose 99.66 to 19,791.99.
In stock markets abroad, London’s FTSE 100 jumped 1.2% after the Bank of England cut its main interest rate as it slashed its forecast for economic growth. The British economy has barely grown over the past six months, and the Bank of England halved its growth projection for the British economy this year to 0.75%.
Stock indexes also rose 1.5% in Paris, 1.4% in Hong Kong and 0.6% in Tokyo.
In Japan, Honda Motor Co. fell, and Nissan Motor Corp. rose after Japanese media said they were ditching their talks to set up a joint holding company. Neither company confirmed the report. An update on the talks is expected by mid-February, but no date has been set.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury held steady at 4.43%, where it was late Wednesday.