Dow ends Wednesday near flat, but the major averages remain on track for big November gains: Live updates

Here's how the major stock indexes closed:

• The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 13.44 points, or 0.04%, to 35,430.42.
• The S&P 500 lost 0.09% to 4,550.58.
• The Nasdaq Composite edged lower by 0.16% to 14,258.49.

— Pia Singh

Lower interest rates in November have increased demand for long-duration assets, particularly growth stocks in technology and cyclicals, according to Barclays analyst Emmanuel Cau.

Equities have seen significant inflows this month, surging to their highest levels since March 2022, Cau said. Both long-only and retail investors were behind the increase in short covering and in real money buying of equities, he noted.

"Rally looks exhausted, but overall equity exposure is only about neutral and cash holdings are high. Although a soft landing feels consensus, poor [mutual fund] returns in Nov suggest positioning is defensive and pain trade remains to the upside into '24." Cau wrote in a Wednesday note. "Aggregate equity positioning, though, still looks marginally below neutral, with discretionary investors holding lower equity exposure compared with systematic peers."

— Pia Singh

Charlie Munger, the late Berkshire legend who was Warren Buffett's right-hand man, had a transformative influence on a generation of value investors, said John Rogers, co-chief executive at Ariel Investments.

"I loved his irreverence," Rogers said Wednesday at CNBC CFO Council Summit. "The way that he would, you know, he was a true contrarian. He didn't care what others thought. And I think to be a successful investor, that's critical, that you don't follow the crowd. You think independently, and he was someone who truly did that."

Rogers said the lessons Munger and Warren Buffett imparted on the importance of placing concentrated, long-term bets in industries investors can understand were "impactful" influences for managers.

"They've transformed so many lives," Rogers said. "The ways that they taught investors to think about the markets and, of course, the emphasis on long term investing that he and Warren believed in."

— Sarah Min

General Motors rose more than 10% as investors cheered a series of business moves, putting the automotive stock on pace for its best day in more than three years.

Shares climbed 10.2% at one point in afternoon trading, before climbing back down to around 9%. If the stock closes above 9.8%, it would mark the best session since March 24, 2020, when shares finished 19.9% higher.

GM initiated a $10 billion stock buyback, while also sharing plans to increase its quarterly dividend by 33% to 12 cents per share. The company also reinstated its 2023 guidance, which included an impact from the United Auto Workers strike.

— Alex Harring, Michael Wayland

Oil prices settled more than 1% higher on Wednesday as futures contracts gain momentum ahead of key OPEC meeting tomorrow.

The West Texas Intermediate crude contract for January rose $1.45, or 1.9%, to settle at $77.86 a barrel, while the Brent crude contract for January rose $1.42, or 1.74%, to settle at $83.10 a barrel.

Oil has rallied about 4% since Monday's close.

OPEC and its allies, OPEC+, are set to hold a virtual meeting tomorrow on production cuts. Sources told Reuters that deeper cuts as well as rolling over current cuts are both on the table.

Meanwhile, a storm on the Black Sea has disrupted oil production in Kazakhstan. The Central Asian nation's three largest oilfields slashed production by more than 50% due to the storms.

The storms disrupted loadings at the Caspian Pipeline Consortium terminal that Kazakhstan uses to export.

-- Spencer Kimball

Pershing Square's Bill Ackman said the Federal Reserve could start cutting rates as soon as the first quarter of 2024, according to Bloomberg's David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations.

"We're betting that the Federal Reserve is going to have to cut rates more quickly than people expect," Ackman said in an upcoming episode of the show. "That's the current macro bet that we have on."

Market pricing projects a 78% chance that the Fed will start cutting in May and lop a full percentage off the fed funds rate by the end of 2024, according to the CME Group's FedWatch gauge.

The hedge fund manager revealed last month that he covered his bet against long-term Treasurys, believing that investors may increasingly buy bonds as a safe haven because of growing geopolitical risks.

— Yun Li

Economic activity has slowed broadly over the past six weeks, while labor demand also has backed off and price increases have eased, the Federal Reserve reported Wednesday in its periodic "Beige Book" summary.

The report showed that consumers showed more "price sensitivity." In the jobs market, firms reported an easier time finding labor and were more comfortable laying off underperformers.

On inflation, the report said prices for construction materials declined, though utilities and insurance costs rose. In general, the report saw businesses saying they see "moderate" price increase continuing into 2024.

—Jeff Cox

Brokerage firm Charles Schwab jumped more than 6% on Wednesday and was on pace for its best day since July 18, when it gained more than 18%.

The pop comes after a positive note on the stock from Piper Sandler, which said Charles Schwab could be a beneficiary of potential rate cuts from the Federal Reserve in 2024.

Schwab was among the financial stocks that fell sharply earlier this year around the time Silicon Valley Bank failed. The stock is still down 28% year to date.

— Jesse Pound

Energy stocks in the S&P 500 are on pace to end November down, bucking the broad index's ascent.

The sector is on track to finish November down 1.8%, making it the only of the 11 that comprise the S&P 500 poised to end lower. (Thursday's close marks the conclusion of the trading month.)

By comparison, consumer staples was the next worst performing S&P 500 sector in November, but was still more than 3% higher. As a whole, the S&P 500 is slated to close the month up by 8.9%.

APA Corporation and Marathon Oil dragged on the sector during the month so far, posting slides of more than 8% and 7%, respectively. EQT and Schlumberger were the next biggest laggards, dropping more than 6% each.

Despite the sector's fall, a handful of energy stocks are still poised for notable advances. Phillips 66 and Kinder Morgan, the two biggest gainers, are both tracking to end 2023's penultimate month more than 7% higher.

— Alex Harring

Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading.

• General Motors — The automaker popped 9.6% after announcing a $10-billion stock buyback plan and a 33% quarterly dividend increase. GM also reinstated its guidance following the end of the United Auto Workers strike.
• Foot Locker — The footwear retailer gained 17% after Foot Locker topped analysts' expectations in its third quarter. Adjusted earnings came in at 30 cents per share on revenue of $1.99 billion. Analysts polled by LSEG were anticipating 21 cents per share on revenue of $1.96 billion.

Read the full list here.

— Sarah Min

Shares of insurer Cigna fell almost 8% after The Wall Street Journal reported the company was in talks to merge with Humana. The deal could be finalized by year-end, according to the report, which cites unnamed sources close to the situation. Humana fell more than 3% while rival CVS, which owns Aetna, was lower by more than 2% and UnitedHealth, which held an investor day, dropped about 1%.

— Fred Imbert

The Nasdaq Composite is about to cap off a record November, with the tech-heavy index up more than 11% since the start of the month and on pace for its best monthly stretch since July 2022.

Datadog's seen the biggest gain in the concentrated Nasdaq-100. with shares up more than 43% since the start of the month. It's followed by PDD Holdings and Crowdstrike, up more than 38% and 30%, respectively, month to date.

Popular artificial intelligence plays and semiconductor names also one big in November, with Advanced Micro Devices on track for a 27% gain. Intel, Marvell Technology and Nvidia have rallied more than 18% each.

Megacap technology stocks also participated in the Nasdaq's blowout rally, with Tesla shares up nearly 24%. Apple and Microsoft have jumped about 12% each in November, while Meta Platforms and Amazon have gained more than 10% each.

— Samantha Subin

Shares of data infrastructure company NetApp surged nearly 16% on Wednesday thanks to a beat on the top and bottom line in the fiscal second-quarter.

NetApp notched an adjusted $1.58 per share on $1.56 billion in revenue, while analysts polled by LSEG expected earnings of $1.39 per share and $1.53 billion in revenue. The firm also issued a higher-than-expected third-quarter earnings forecast.

— Brian Evans

Bond yields were falling again on Wednesday, with the 10-year Treasury yield falling below 4.3% for the first time since September.

The benchmark Treasury yield briefly broke above 5% in late October but has retreated this month as traders have grown increasingly confident that the Federal Reserve is done with its rate hikes for this cycle. Bond yields move opposite of prices.

At about 8 a.m. ET, the 10-year Treasury yield was down more than four basis points to 4.288%. The 2-year Treasury yield fell nearly seven basis points to 4.668%. A basis points is equal to 0.01%.

— Jesse Pound

Gold hit a high of $2,072.70 per ounce earlier Wednesday, the highest level since May 4, when gold traded as high as $2,085.40 per ounce.

Gold mining companies Gold Fields and AngloGold Ashanti are up about 13% this week, while New Gold has gained 8.1% week-to-date.

— Pia Singh

Here's how the major indexes opened on Wednesday:

• The S&P 500 gained about 0.5%.
• The Dow Jones Industrials Average added 66 points, or nearly 0.2%.
• The Nasdaq Composite jumped 0.7%.

— Pia Singh

Gross domestic product grew at an even stronger than expected pace in the third quarter, the Commerce Department announced Wednesday.

GDP, a measure of all goods and services produced during the July-through-September period, accelerated at 5.2% annualized pace, better than the 5% Dow Jones forecast and above the initial estimate of 4.9%. This was the second of three readings on the key economic number.

The upgrade came mostly from revisions to nonresidential fixed investment and government spending, while consumer expenditures were revised lower.

–Jeff Cox

These are the stocks moving the most in premarket trading:

• General Motors — Shares of the automaker jumped 9% in premarket trading after GM announced a $10 billion stock buyback plan and hiked its quarterly dividend by 33%.
• Petco — Shares of the pet retailer plummeted 17% after reporting disappointing third-quarter earnings.
• Foot Locker — Shares jumped 12% after the footwear retailer posted third-quarter earnings and sales Wednesday that beat Wall Street expectations and said it expects better same-stores sales this year than it previously did.

Read the full list of stocks moving here.

— Lisa Kailai Han

Shares of Phillips 66 gained more than 5% in early morning trading after Elliott Management took a $1 billion stake in the energy company. The activist firm and plans to seek as many as two board seats, sources told CNBC's David Faber.

Phillips 66 has a market cap of $51.9 billion.

— Pia Singh

Shares of cybersecurity firm Okta slipped 1.5% in Wednesday's premarket trading session. The company reported a beat on earnings and revenue for the third quarter, however, posting 44 cents per share in earnings on $584 million in revenue. Analysts polled by FactSet had called for 30 cents per share in earnings on $560.6 million in revenue.

On Tuesday, Okta said in a message that a hack on its customer support system led to all customer data being stolen, driving shares lower. The stock has plummeted 10.9% this quarter, but is still up nearly 6.3% for the year.

— Pia Singh

General Motors shares popped more than 5% in the premarket after the auto giant announced a $10 billion share buyback program. The company also raised its dividend and reinstated its 2023 guidance.

— Fred Imbert

Ed Yardeni of Yardeni Research noted that, while Fed rate cuts are a possibility next year, he doesn't see the central bank dramatically easing monetary policy.

"The big debate now seems to be when and by how much the Fed will lower interest rates," Yardeni wrote. "The federal funds rate peaked just before eight of the past 10 recessions. It plunged during all of them. The optimists (including yours truly) aren't expecting a recession through the end of 2024, so we expect that any rate cutting by the Fed next year will be limited, maybe to two to four cuts of 25bps each."

— Fred Imbert

Meituan's Hong Kong-listed shares plunged more than 11% to 91.65 Hong Kong dollars by afternoon trading.

Shares of the Chinese delivery firm fell to their lowest level since late March 2020 as it struck a cautious tone in its third quarter earnings call, according to a transcript by FactSet.

"We think in Q4 revenue year-over-year gross profit delivery will be slightly lower than the Q3 growth rate," Meituan management warned on the call.

The company said on Tuesday its third-quarter revenue rose 22.1% to 76.47 billion Chinese yuan ($10.81 billion) from a year earlier. Adjusted net profit came in at 5.7 billion yuan ($809 million).

Hong Kong's main Hang Seng index fell nearly 2%.

— Shreyashi Sanyal

South Korean stocks have so far emerged as an undervalued and underloved part of Asia-Pacific equity markets but that is exactly what could make them attractive to investors next year, according to Goldman Sachs.

Goldman even argued that South Korea markets offer the highest potential earnings growth in 2024 in the Asia-Pacific region as its semiconductor sector recovers from steep profit declines. The investment firm remains overweight on South Korean stocks.

"We forecast EPS growth to rebound to 54% in 2024 and to grow 20% further in 2025," Goldman said with regards to Korea's Kospi benchmark index.

South Korea is Asia's fourth largest economy but its markets are often considered undervalued by analysts, leading to what is sometimes referred to as the "Korea discount."

Read the full story here.

— Shreyashi Sanyal

The New Zealand dollar jumped 1% to nearly 0.62 against the U.S. dollar after the Reserve Bank of New Zealand held its official cash rate at 5.5% and warned that rates could go higher to tackle inflation.

The kiwi dollar jumped to its highest level in nearly four months after the decision. The currency is down 2.5% so far this year and is headed for its third straight yearly decline.

The central bank noted that inflation is still too high and said monetary policy will need to remain restrictive in order to control it.

Read the full story here.

— Shreyashi Sanyal

Australia's weighted inflation rate for October slowed more than expected, coming in at 4.9% compared with the 5.2% expected by economists polled by Reuters.

This was also lower than the 5.6% seen in September. The overall inflation rate stood at 4.8%, its lowest level since January 2022.

The country's statistics bureau revealed that the most significant price rises were housing, food and non-alcoholic beverages, as well as transport.

— Lim Hui Jie

Stock futures were little changed on Tuesday, with investors clinging to hope that the Federal Reserve was done raising benchmark interest rates.

Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 17 points, or 0.05%. S&P 500 futures climbed 0.02% while Nasdaq 100 futures hovered near the flatline.

— Brian Evans