From Dow Jones & Company:



US stock indexes were little changed on Wednesday morning, with the S&P 500 opening a fraction shy of a fresh record amid lingering optimism that US borrowing costs will fall in 2024. On Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.4%, to 37545, the S&P 500 increased 0.4%, to 4,775, and the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.5%, to 15,075. The S&P 500 opened Wednesday’s session only about 0.5% below its record closing high of 4,796.56, set on January 3rd, 2022.

The Wall Street equity benchmark is striving for a ninth consecutive week of gains, which would be its best such winning streak since 2004, having jumped 24.4% so far in 2023. Investors have piled into stocks primarily on hopes that with inflation falling back near the Federal Reserve’s 2% target, the central bank will start reducing borrowing costs by the spring of 2024, and all while the US economy avoids a recession. The U.S. stock indexes remain relatively stable and mostly unchanged.

Shares of Cytokinetics Inc. jumped 70% on Wednesday, after the cardiovascular biopharmaceutical company announced positive results from a Phase 3 trial of aficamten, a treatment for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). On the other hand, Iovance Biotherapeutics Inc.’s stock fell 23.2% after the cancer therapy company said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration placed a clinical hold on its trial for IOV-LUN-202.



Read more: U.S. stocks remain flat with S&P 500 just shy of record high as interest rate optimism holds sway