S&P 500 closes little changed Monday after Moody's cut to U.S. outlook: Live updates

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed higher on Monday, the only one of the three major indexes to end the day in the green.

The 30-stock index gained about 55 points, or 0.16%, to close at 34,337.87. The S&P 500 shed 0.08% to finish the session at 4,411.55, while the Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.22% to 13,767.74.

— Lisa Kailai Han

October's consumer price index data, a key inflation gauge for the Federal Reserve and due to be released Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. ET, will shed some light on the U.S. economy before the December FOMC meeting.

"There is less than a 10% chance of a rate hike at that meeting, so it is unlikely that we will get market-moving data to shift an unchanged decision," said Jamie Dutta, market analyst at Vantage.

Dutta added that "there should be very modest growth in prices on a monthly basis and a further move down in the annual rate towards 3%."

Next year, the analyst expects prices to fall closer to the Fed's target as consumers begin feeling the pressure of tighter financial and credit conditions.

— Lisa Kailai Han

The world is facing the highest level of geopolitical risk in five decades as the Israel-Hamas war threatens to spread and the war in Ukraine grinds on, the CEO of one of the top oilfield services companies said.

Lorenzo Simonelli, the CEO of Baker Hughes, said people are comparing the current situation to the 1973 oil embargo, but he has never sign a higher level of risk.

"But in my tenure, no [the geopolitical climate has not been this fragile]," Simonelli told the Financial Times in an interview. "This is, from a political standpoint, very fluid."

The oil markets have largely dismissed the risk of an escalation in the Israel-Hamas war that could disrupt oil production in recent weeks. Simonelli said the conflict has not changed the outlook for supply and demand so far, but he warned that the risk of escalation remains.

"Base case is that this is hopefully contained within the situation that it is currently — sad as it is — and things continue to be tight," Hughes said. "But clearly, if there's a worsening and deterioration and an escalation of the situation, things will change."

-- Spencer Kimball

Bank of America expects a "tepid" retail sales report for October as debit and credit card spending declined in October.

The firm said that looking at aggregated credit and debit card data, total card spending fell 0.5% on a yearly basis in October. Household card spending also dropped 0.2% month-over-month in October on a seasonally adjusted basis, t added.

"However, the US Economics team forecasts a 0.1% increase in the Census Bureau's retail sales ex-autos estimate for October. The softness in BAC card spending on the month was partly driven by the sharp drop in gas prices," the firm said in a Monday note.

— Hakyung Kim

Veteran Wall Street strategist Ed Yardeni said in a note Monday that the S&P 500 is on track to reach 4,600 by the end of the year.

"We are expecting that both the bond yield and the oil price will stabilize around current levels. If so, then the Santa Claus rally may proceed through year-end as we project. During the latest stock market correction, the Bond Vigilantes saddled up and were riding high. Now stock investors may be back in the saddle again," the note said.

The S&P 500 entered Monday's session up 15% for the year.

Read more about Yardeni's outlook at CNBC Pro.

— Jesse Pound

Oil prices settled higher on Monday after OPEC dismissed concerns that demand is slowing.

Brent crude contracts for January rose $1.09, or 1.34%, to settle at $82.52 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate contracts for December rose $1.09, or 1.41%, to settle at $78.26 a barrel.

Oil futures sold off last week as traders dismissed the risk of a broader Middle East war and started to worry that a fall in exports out of China could signal an economic slowdown that will hit crude demand.

But OPEC dismissed those fears in a report Monday, saying market fundamentals are strong with Chinese crude imports rising in October. The group of oil producers also pointed to strong economic growth in the U.S. and noted that the International Monetary forecasts the Chinese economy will grow 5.4% this year.

OPEC blamed the selloff on speculators betting that crude prices will fall.

-- Spencer Kimball

Utility stocks underperformed in the S&P 500 on Monday, reflecting the broader trend of 2023.

The sector slid 1.2%, making it the worst performer of the 11 in the index on Monday. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 as a whole inched up just 0.1%.

American Electric and Evergy led the sector down in the session, with each slipping 2.7%. With a gain of 1.4%, NRG was the only stock in the sector on pace to end Monday's trading day higher

Utility stocks in the S&P 500 have also posted the worst returns this year, with the sector down more than 15% in 2023. By comparison, the broad index is posed to end the year up about 15%.

— Alex Harring

Medical device stocks were rallying Monday after a full look at data from Novo Nordisk's cardiovascular study of patients on Wegovy was not as bad as some investors had feared. While the data showed heart benefits for patients taking the GLP-1 drug, it fell short of being considered a statistically significant factor in reducing cardiovascular death.

Stocks like Penumbra, Dexcom and Insulet have fallen signficantly in recent months, on concern that Wegovy and other drugs like it, would eat into the market for glucose monitors and devices used in surgeries for stroke and other ailments.

Penumbra shares jumped nearly 17%, Dexcom added 5% and Insulet gained 7%.

—Christina Cheddar Berk

The Nasdaq-100 is on pace to do something it hasn't done in more than four months: close lower on a Monday. BTIG's Jonathan Krinsky pointed out that the tech-heavy index hasn't closed lower on a Monday since late June. During this Monday streak, the Nasdaq-100 has averaged a gain of 0.66%.

— Fred Imbert

Here are some of the names making moves during midday trading:

• Tesla — Shares popped 3.4% after it was revealed that the updated terms of Tesla's cybertruck order agreements stipulate that buyers won't sell the vehicle within the first year of ownership without permission.
• CrowdStrike — The stock gained nearly 2% after being upgraded to by from hold by Stifel. The investment bank said it sees several positive catalysts ahead for the cybersecurity firm.
• Nvidia — Shares added about 1%, advancing for a ninth day, after Nvidia unveiled its newest high-end artificial intelligence chip, the H200.

To see more stocks making midday moves, read the full story here.

— Michelle Fox

Nvidia shares were up 1% on Monday, putting them on pace for their ninth straight day of gains. That would tie a nine-day run seen in March, which was also the longest streak since 2016.

The stock is up nearly 20% during this latest run.

— Fred Imbert

Oil prices rose on Monday after OPEC said demand for crude is strong, blaming speculators for a recent selloff.

Brent crude contracts for January rose $1.05, or 1.29%, to $82.48 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate contracts for December rose $1.04, or 1.35%, to $78.21 a barrel.

Oil futures sold off last week after Chinese exports fell, raising concerns that the global economy is slowing amid high interest rates. The Energy Information Agency also forecast that U.S. crude consumption will fall this year.

But OPEC said in a report published Monday that the oil market remains strong as the U.S. and Chinese economies continue to grow. The organization also pointed to a rise in Chinese crude imports in October.

OPEC blamed speculators for betting that prices will fall.

"Despite the above healthy and supportive market fundamentals, oil prices have trended lower in recent weeks, mainly driven by financial market speculators, as they have sharply reduced their net long positions over the month of October, compared to the late September," the organization said.

-- Spencer Kimball

Markets could still tick higher but investors should consider profit taking, according to Wells Fargo head of equity strategy Christopher Harvey.

"You could go higher, but if you go higher, we don't want people to be greedy," Harvey told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" on Monday. "Take some profits [and] be a little bit more defensive."

Harvey added that he remains focused on large caps stocks, and noted that small caps "have a difficult time getting out of their own way" in the current economic environment.

— Brian Evans

Warner Bros. Discovery shares dropped 3.6% Monday after Guggenheim said the mass media company has an "NFL problem," and could seek to acquire a company that has the rights to stream games.

The National Football League drives U.S. viewer engagement, as well as streaming service sign-ups, but is "conspicuously absent" in the Warner Bros. Discovery portfolio, Guggenheim's Michael Morris wrote in a Monday note. Instead, the NFL has six distribution partnerships with Alphabet, Amazon, Comcast, Disney, Fox and Paramount.

"With no new NFL rights coming available for the balance of the decade, we believe that WBD could potentially look to acquire a company with an existing arrangement, with FOX or Paramount as the most likely possible targets, in our view," Morris wrote.

"WBD management teed up the company as a potential acquirer over the next 12-24 months, which could help the company bolster its sports offering with the most highly demanded content," he added.

Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC.

— Sarah Min

The WilderHill Clean Energy ETF (PBW) edged lower on Monday, reaching a level last seen more than three years ago.

The ETF was last trading around $24.50 on Monday after slipping around 0.4%. That's the cheapest level the fund has seen since April 2020.

FTC Solar and TPI Composites were the biggest losers in the ETF on Monday, with each dropping more than 6%. On the other hand, Freyr Battery was able to help restrict losses for the fund through an 8% rally.

— Alex Harring, Gina Francolla

Alibaba and JD said their sales figures grew during China's annual Singles Day shopping holiday — although the Chinese e-commerce giants kept exact total figures under wraps.

But third-party data providers believe that transactions across major sites reached $156 billion, or up by 2%, CNBC's Eunice Yoon said on "Squawk on the Street" Monday morning. While this is a large figure, this comes below last year's estimated growth of 2.9%.

Transactions on Apple products came in at $1.4 billion dollars, similar to last year, according to JD. Xiaomi, a local competitor to Apple, reported a bump in purchases for its latest smartphone, which was a bestselling product on Alibaba.

"What people are taking away from that bump is that there are two trends: that a lot of Chinese consumers are preferring to buy cheaper products and also buying local," Yoon said.

— Lisa Kailai Han

Exxon Mobil is making a long-term investment in lithium production for electric car batteries though a drilling operation the oil giant is launching in Arkansas.

Exxon announced Monday that it plans to start lithium production in 2027 at the Smackover formation, a geological site with significant reserves of the mineral.

The oil giant plans to produce enough lithium to support the manufacture of more than a million electric vehicles annually by 2030.

Exxon is in discussions with potential customers in the battery and automotive industry, the company said.

The U.S. is heavily reliant on lithium imports, primarily from Argentina and Chile, despite having some of the largest reserves of the mineral in the world.

Dan Ammann, head of Exxon's low carbon solutions business, told CNBC that ramping up domestic production is key to the energy transition with a high, sustained rate of growth expected long term.

— Spencer Kimball

JPMorgan says that it's not necessarily true that defensive stocks will struggle if bond yields stay elevated or move higher from here.

Defensive stocks underwent a "prolonged spell of weakness" from inflation and the rise in yields starting last year, followed by the bond sell-off this August and September, before starting to recover in recent weeks, according to the firm.

The defensive trade could perform well even if yields keep moving higher, according to equity strategist Mislav Matejka, because the market overall would likely fall in that scenario.

"Any breakout in bond yields beyond 5% will likely be seen as a problem for the economic outlook and equities will generally struggle against that backdrop," Matejka wrote in a Monday note.

The strategist highlighted utilities and staples as the U.S. defensive outperformers in the past month, as well as real estate in Europe.

— Hakyung Kim

Stocks opened lower on Monday after Moody's Investors Service lowered its U.S. credit rating outlook to negative from stable.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed nearly 45 points, or 0.13%. The S&P 500 slid 0.27%, while the Nasdaq Composite dipped 0.4%.

— Lisa Kailai Han

S&P 500 third-quarter earnings per share have proven resilient, growing for the first time since this time last year, according to Goldman Sachs' David Kostin.

Earnings per share grew by 4% year over year and was up 10% excluding the energy sector, which was also the worst-performing sector last week.

"Many investors are concerned about downgrades to consensus earnings forecasts, but they are tracking in line with the typical pattern and are being dragged down by Health Care," Kostin wrote.

The analyst added that he's maintaining his S&P 500 earnings per share forecasts of $224 in 2023, representing 1% year-over-year growth; $237 in 2024, representing 5% year-over-year growth; and $250 in 2025, representing 5% year-over-year growth.

— Lisa Kailai Han, Michael Bloom

Check out the companies making headlines before the bell:

• Monday.com — Shares of the project management company jumped 10% after Monday.com reported a strong quarter and issued a rosy forecast.
• Tyson Foods — The food products company fell 3.3% in premarket trading after Tyson's fiscal fourth-quarter revenue came in weaker than expected. The company generated $13.35 billion in revenue, below the $13.71 billion projected by analysts, according to LSEG. The company also said it expected sales to relatively flat in the year ahead.
• Boeing — Shares rose 3.25% after Emirates Airlines announced the purchase of 95 Boeing aircraft for a total of $52 billion.

Read the full list here.

— Sarah Min

A slew of economic data, including retail sales, could have a big impact on the market his week, according to Raymond James.

The Commerce Department is expected to release its retail data for October on Wednesday.

"As the first month with meaningful impact of student loan payment resumption, we suspect the market will run with the assumption of economic weakening if retail sales are weaker than already modest expectations, or resilience if they come in stronger (as the last three prints have)," analyst Tavis McCourt wrote in a note Sunday.

Also on the calendar this week are the consumer price index report for October, expected Tuesday, and U.S. industrial production, expected Thursday.

— Michelle Fox, Michael Bloom

Shares of monday.com climbed more than 7% in premarket trading on Monday after the project management software company announced better-than-expected third-quarter earnings results.

Monday.com reported ex-items earnings of 64 cents per share on $189.2 million of revenue, versus the 21 cents per share on $182.5 million of revenue expected by analysts polled by FactSet.

For the fourth quarter, monday.com guided for revenue between $196 million to $198 million, versus the $195 million expected by analysts, according to FactSet. The firm also lifted its full-year guidance to between $723 million to $725 million, versus previous estimations of between $713 million to $717 million.

— Lisa Kailai Han

Consumers spending, which has kept the economy afloat despite the pressures of higher interest rates and inflation, pulled back in October, according to a joint monitor launched Monday by CNBC and the National Retail Federation.

Sales excluding autos and gas declined by 0.08% on the month. Excluding restaurants, core sales declined by 0.03%.

The Retail Monitor differs from the Census report released each month in that it calculates actual sales rather than survey data. The monitor collects results from more than 9 billion annual credit and debit card transactions, and is adjusted seasonally though it will not need to be revised.

Sales were off in gas stations, electronics and appliances as well as furniture and home stores.

—Jeff Cox

There are good news, and there are bad news for stock investors as year-end draws closer, according to Goldman Sachs.

Strategist Peter Oppenheimer said that the "good news is that inflation and interest rates now appear to have peaked and our economists continue to expect a soft landing. This backdrop is benign for equity markets, reducing the downside risks for investors."

"However, the upside is also constrained by a low equity risk premium, only moderate profit growth through 2024, and indications that the market is already pricing a soft landing," he said.

— Fred Imbert

Chinese smartphone and consumer electronics company Xiaomi claimed record sales across platforms during the Singles Day shopping festival.

From Oct. 23 to the end of day on Nov. 11, Xiaomi said it sold more than 22.4 billion yuan ($3.11 billion) worth of products on platforms such as Alibaba's Tmall and Taobao, JD.com, Pinduoduo and Douyin.

Xiaomi shares traded more than 2% higher Monday morning in Hong Kong.

Alibaba and JD.com declined for a second-straight year to share total figures for the Singles Day shopping festival.

The electric vehicle market is expected to hit a milestone next year, according to HSBC.

Its global penetration rate could hit the "important 20% threshold" next year — "heralding entry to the mass market" for the first time, it said.

"This has major implications for battery makers," the bank wrote in a Nov. 1 note.

It named buy-rated battery stocks.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

— Weizhen Tan

Japan's wholesale inflation slowed sharply last month, in a sign that cost pressures were gradually cooling, according to data released by the Bank of Japan.

The central bank's corporate goods price index rose 0.8% in October from a year earlier, a tad lower than a Reuters poll for a 0.9% increase.

The reading was below 1% for the first time since February 2021, and marked the 10th straight month of cooling wholesale inflation.

— Shreyashi Sanyal

Electric car batteries determine how affordable the vehicles are, and how far they can drive on a single charge.

One Chinese company has captured a significant share of that critical market.

It's the biggest stock by market capitalization in the index of largest stocks traded on the Shenzhen exchange — bigger than even BYD's local listing.

UBS analysts think the stock could more than double in price in the months ahead.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

The tech sector is still feeling the ripple effects of when real rates were below 1%, according to Bank of America's technology, media and telecommunications team. The firm said the unwinding effects of the "zero interest rate policy" era are still ongoing and will continue into 2024.

"Earnings were not a near-term priority at many companies, as valuations in Growth Tech were dictated by EV/Sales, total revenue growth, and revenue growth accretion, rather than earnings accretion," the TMT team wrote in a Sunday note.

"As a result, companies were incentivized to pursue low/no margin revenues. ... Empty calories were all the rage. This created many distortions," it added.

This created both over-confident management teams and investors, it added, underscoring that software, internet and e-commerce and streaming companies were the most impacted by this trend.

— Hakyung Kim

The U.S. will see GDP growth slow down next year, according to Morgan Stanley. The firm also predicts the Federal Reserve will hold rates steady at 5.375% until June 2024, when it predicts rate cuts will begin.

"High rates for longer cause a persistent drag, more than offsetting the fiscal impulse and bringing growth sustainably below potential from 3Q24. We maintain our view that the Fed will achieve a soft landing, but weakening growth will keep recession fears alive. We forecast that GDP slows from an estimated 2.5% 4Q/4Q (2.4%Y) in 2023 to 1.6% (1.9%) in 2024," chief U.S. economist Ellen Zentner wrote in a Sunday note.

Labor demand will also slow in 2024, but will not be "falling off a cliff," she added.

— Hakyung Kim

U.S. stock futures ticked down Sunday night.

Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 43 points, or 0.15%. Meanwhile, S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures declined by 0.16% and 0.12%, respectively.

— Hakyung Kim