U.S. stocks were pulling back from record territory in the final hour of trade Thursday as investors looked forward to big banks kicking off earnings season in earnest.
“Inflation is ebbing lower, but it’s going to take some time,” said Anthony Saglimbene, chief market strategist at Ameriprise Financial, in a phone interview.
It also doesn’t help that an early raft of third-quarter earnings results and forward guidance from PepsiCo Inc. and Delta Air Lines Inc. were not bad, but also not very encouraging. “That’s not setting a positive tone for markets,” Saglimbene said.
Big banks reporting on Friday aren’t likely to offer a lot of surprises, he added, but there still was “a little bit of trepidation about what they might look like.”