Wall Street lull hits second day

Stock drifted to a mixed close as Wall Street remains in a lull. The S&P 500 closed little changed Wednesday, after a big three-day winning streak gave way to a slight gain the prior day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.4%, and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.2%. Uber Technologies slumped after reporting worse results for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Shopify tumbled after giving a forecast for slowing revenue growth. Lyft and Arista Networks revved higher after topping expectations for profit and revenue. Treasury yields ticked higher in the bond market.

Biden lauds new Microsoft center

President Joe Biden has laced into Donald Trump over a failed project that was supposed to bring thousands of new jobs into southeastern Wisconsin. Now on that site, construction will start on a new data center from Microsoft, whose president credits the Biden administration’s economic policies. For Biden, it offers another point of contrast between him and Trump, who had promised a $10 billion investment by the Taiwan-based electronics giant Foxconn that never came. Biden said Wednesday that “Foxconn turned out to be just that — a con.”

Taylor Swift tour tickets cheaper in Europe

Thousands of Taylor Swift fans are following her across the pond after missing out on her U.S. concert tour last year or being put off by marked-up ticket prices. Swift is kicking off the 18-city Europe leg of her Eras Tour on Thursday. The Paris arena where she is performing says Americans bought 20% of the tickets. The Chamber of Commerce in Stockholm says about 10,000 people are coming from the U.S. for her shows. Some fans say they justified the expense after noticing that tighter restrictions on ticket fees and resales in Europe made flying overseas to see Swift no more costly and potentially cheaper than catching her closer to home.

FTX to return money after crypto collapse

FTX says that nearly all of its customers will receive the money back that they are owed, two years after the cryptocurrency exchange imploded, and some will get more than that. FTX said in a court filing late Tuesday that it owes about $11.2 billion to its creditors. The exchange estimates that it has between $14.5 billion and $16.3 billion to distribute to them.The interest rate for most creditors is 9%. FTX, which was once the third-largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, filed for bankruptcy protection in November 2022 after it experienced the crypto equivalent of a bank run.