Stocks Open Flat on Wednesday As Investors Look Ahead to the New Year

Stocks were little changed Wednesday as traders looked to the end of a losing year and prepared for 2023.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 91 points, or 0.27%. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite were up 0.25% and 0.2%, respectively.

Investors will look for insights into the state of the economy in manufacturing data from the Richmond Federal Reserve and pending home sales coming Wednesday morning. Market participants will be looking for numbers that can signal the economy is cooling, which they hope could indicate to the Fed that interest rate hikes can continue slowing.

Tuesday kicked off the start of a holiday-shortened trading week. The Dow rose 37.63 points, or 0.11%, to close at 33,241.56. The S&P 500 fell 0.40%.

The Nasdaq Composite shed nearly 1.4%, driven down by an 11% drop in Tesla stock after The Wall Street Journal reported that the electric vehicle maker would continue a weeklong production pause at a Shanghai facility. Tuesday marked the seventh straight day of losses for the stock.

It comes at the end of a tumultuous year for the electric-vehicle maker as owner Elon Musk executed a chaotic purchase of Twitter. Tesla’s share value is down 69% this year.