U.S. stocks were wobbling amid tepid consumer sentiment

Investing.com -- U.S. stocks were wobbling as investors digested data that showed inflation was cooling but sentiment was weaker than expected.

At 11:34 ET (15:34 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 80 points or 0.2%, while the S&P 500 was down 0.3% and the NASDAQ Composite was down 0.5%.

Both consumer and producer prices cooled, according to data released this week. Jobless claims were higher than expected. Consumer sentiment came in much weaker than expected.

The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment reading for May came in at 57.7, much lower than the 63 expected and down from 63.5 in April.

Futures traders expect that the Federal Reserve will pause interest rate increases when it meets next month, after more than a year of aggressive hikes that brought the benchmark rate from near zero to above 5%.

Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) shares were down more than 1% after CEO Elon Musk said he had found a new CEO for the social media platform Twitter, which he bought in October. Investors of the electric vehicle company have worried that his ownership of Twitter would distract him from Tesla.

Regional bank stocks were trying to recover after dropping on Thursday. PacWest Bancorp (NASDAQ:PACW) was down 2% after disclosing that deposits dropped more than 9% last week.

Investors are also hoping for signs of progress in talks about raising the nation’s debt ceiling, as lawmakers fight over what terms to set as a condition of making a deal. Congress has to act to raise or suspend the limit by early June, or administration officials have warned the U.S. could run out of options to continue paying its obligations.