Stocks Are Mixed as Crude Oil Falls, Disney Slides

Stocks are mixed Friday as crude oil slides ahead of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' meeting next week.
By Keris Alison Lahiff ,

Stocks were mixed Friday as crude oil slid ahead of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' meeting next week.

The S&P 500 was up 0.1%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.02%, and Nasdaq futures gained 0.21%. Stock markets close at 1 p.m. on Friday.

Investors hope OPEC will decide to cut output in an effort to drive up prices. The group's members have held production near record highs even as prices slumped in a strategic move to hold onto market share. West Texas Intermediate crude was down 2.1% to $42.13 a barrel on Friday.

Major oilers including Exxon Mobil (XOM) - Get Report , Chevron (CVX) - Get Report , Schlumberger (SLB) - Get Report  and ConocoPhillips (COP) - Get Report were all lower, while the Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLE) - Get Report fell 0.8%. 

Disney (DIS) - Get Report shares fell more than 2%, weighing heavily on the Dow, after the world's largest entertainment company disclosed that sports channel ESPN had lost 7 million subscribers over the past two years. ESPN had 92 million subscribers as of the end of the fiscal year in October, down from 95 million a year earlier.

Retailers were on watch as Black Friday, one of the biggest shopping days of the year, kicked off. Early checks by Adobe suggest online sales have offered 24% deeper discounts than a year earlier to move more inventory.

Around 30 million people are expected to have shopped on Thanksgiving, plus 99.7 million on Black Friday, according to the National Retail Federation. The trade group estimates about 135.8 million people will be shopping during the four-day weekend, compared with 133.7 million last year. Overall sales for November and December are forecast to rise 3.7% to $630.5 billion.

Target (TGT) - Get Report has already said that its results have been better than expected, though did not disclose any solid sales numbers. The retailer began its promotions last Sunday with discounts of around 10% on electronics.

China's Shanghai Composite closed 5.5% lower in its biggest daily drop since Aug. 18. Chinese shares were under pressure on news some of the country's largest brokerage firms would be investigated by regulators. Citic Securities and Guosen Securities said they were currently under investigation by the China Securities Regulatory Commission.

HSBC (HSBC) - Get Report shares were on watch after the company announced it was shutting down its private banking business in India. The bank is currently cutting costs by shrinking its global reach. HSBC said the 70 employees who work at the division will move to its retail arm.

Next week is a big one for investors. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen will speak on Wednesday and Thursday and is expected to reiterate the Fed's previous party line that a mid-December rate hike is likely if the economic data continues to show improvement. 

The November jobs report, due next Friday, is the key release of the week and is the most important piece of data between now and when the Fed meets on Dec. 15. Economists expected 185,000 jobs to have been added to U.S. nonfarm payrolls over the past month.  

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