Wall Street to make muted but mostly higher start

US indices are expected to make a hesitant start, with attention focused on the hullaballoo surrounding the flotation of Airbnb. The S&P 500 is expected to open more or less unchanged at 6,373. The Dow Jones industrial average is tipped to edge 37 points higher to 30,105 while the Nasdaq 500 is on course to open a measly 11 points firmer at 12,349. Airbnb Inc (NASDAQ:ABNB) shares are expected to start trading today after the spare room booking app developer priced its initial public offering (IPO) at US$68, well above the recently indicated target range of US$56 – US$60. The IPO price values Airbnb at more than US$40bn. "Technological innovation means that hosts and host management companies are more easily able to manage inventory, availability, and pricing across different platforms, and this is reducing the costs of switching from Airbnb,” cautioned Dan Thomas, an analyst at Third Bridge who sees challenges to Airbnb on several fronts. "In some markets, we see a trend of hosts acquiring visitors through the Airbnb platform, but then retaining them via cheaper platforms or direct booking discounts,” Thomas said. "Booking Holdings is a formidable competitor. In FY 2019 it generated almost USD 4.9bn in operating cash. It has been fine-tuning its performance marketing funnel and has shown an appetite for vacation rentals. "An important question is how much more growth Airbnb can achieve through direct traffic to the platform once the pandemic is over. For the nine months to end September, 91% of all site traffic arrived directly or via unpaid channels which helped preserve the business through an exceptionally challenging period. Pre-pandemic, the level of direct enquiry or via unpaid channels was 77% of Airbnb’s total traffic, a level at which achieving profitability is far more challenging,” Thomas said. As for US macroeconomic data, today sees the release of the consumer price index. Daiwa’s chief economist for America, Mike Moran, thinks that “tame food and energy readings” will limit the headline index to a 0.1% month-on-month gain, but that the reversal of pandemic-related discounting will lead to a 0.2% lift in the core index. The latter would leave the annual inflation rate close to last month’s reading of 1.6%. It’s Thursday, so there will also be the weekly jobless claims report where it will be interesting, according to Daiwa, to see whether initial claims sustained the lower reading seen last week. Five things to watch for on Thursday: Second quarter earnings figures from IT major Oracle Corp (NYSE:ORCL) are likely to draw some attention to the company news diary Traders may also be interested in fourth quarter numbers from semiconductor maker Broadcom Inc (NASDAQ:AVGO) Meanwhile, warehouse shopping giant Costco Wholesale Corp (NASDAQ:COST) will also draw attention as it releases first quarter earnings In the macro diary, inflation data for November is likely to be the headline figure Jobless claims numbers for the week to December 5 will also provide some clarity on the state of the American jobs market