WEST BROMWICH, England (AP) — The flurry of New Year’s firings at British soccer clubs continued at West Bromwich Albion which removed Ryan Mason on Tuesday after just seven months.
Mason goes with the team 18th in the 24-team Championship. He was given a three-year contract in his first full-time head coach job after two spells as interim at Tottenham.
Mason stepped up at Tottenham when José Mourinho and Antonio Conte left in, respectively, 2021 and 2023.
He is the fourth coach to leave West Brom in the club’s five seasons since being relegated from the Premier League.
West Brom said assistant coach James Morrison will take interim control, ahead of the team’s English League Cup third round game on Sunday at Swansea.
In a tough week for coaches, Chelsea fired Enzo Maresca on New Year’s Day and Manchester United removed Ruben Amorim on Monday.
In Scotland, league champion Celtic fired Wilfried Nancy on Monday after a chaotic 33-day spell and Aberdeen sacked Jimmy Thelin on Sunday seven months after winning the club's first Scottish Cup trophy for 35 years.
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
FILE - Tottenham's interim head coach Ryan Mason applauds after his team lost 4-3 at the end of an English Premier League soccer match between Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur at Anfield stadium in Liverpool, Sunday, April 30, 2023. (AP Photo/Jon Super, File)
FILE - Tottenham's interim head coach Ryan Mason, centre holds the ball during an English Premier League soccer match between Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur at Anfield stadium in Liverpool, Sunday, April 30, 2023. (AP Photo/Jon Super, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street’s strong start to the year slowed. The S&P 500 slipped 0.3% Wednesday for its first loss in four days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.9% from its own record set the day before, while the Nasdaq composite added 0.2%. Some of the market’s sharpest drops hit industries that President Donald Trump targeted for criticism. Homebuilders fell after Trump suggested moves to prevent large institutional investors from buying single-family homes, in hopes of making it more affordable for people to buy houses.. Crude oil prices fell, and Treasury yields swung in the bond market following mixed reports on the U.S. economy.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street’s strong start to the year is slowing on Wednesday.
The S&P 500 was virtually unchanged in late trading, coming off its latest all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 332 points, or 0.7%, from its own record set the day before, while the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite was up 0.5%, with a little less than an hour remaining in trading.
Homebuilders fell sharply after President Donald Trump suggested moves to prevent large institutional investors from buying single-family homes, hoping to make it more affordable for people to buy houses. The potential removal of some buyers for homes sent the stock prices of both PulteGroup and D.R. Horton down 3.1%.
Blackstone, a large investment company, briefly fell more than 9%, but it quickly pared its loss to a drop of 4.8%.
Moves across the rest of the U.S. stock market were mostly quiet, including for Warner Bros. Discovery after it again rejected a buyout bid from Paramount and told its shareholders to stick with a rival offer from Netflix.
Warner Bros. Discovery rose 0.3%, while Paramount Skydance fell 1.5% and Netflix added 0.6%.
In the oil market, crude prices fell after Trump said that Venezuela would provide 30 million to 50 million barrels of oil to the United States. A barrel of benchmark U.S. crude dropped 2% to $55.99. Brent crude, the international standard, fell a more modest 1.2% to settle at $59.96 per barrel.
Any additional oil flowing from Venezuela into the global system would push down on crude prices by increasing their supplies. Prices for oil have swung this week following Trump’s weekend ouster of the president of Venezuela, which is likely sitting on some of the largest deposits of oil in the world.
Oil prices had already fallen back to where they were in 2021, before Trump's move against Venezuela, because of expectations of plentiful supplies. To pull much more oil from Venezuela's ground would likely require big investments to improve aging infrastructure.
In the bond market, Treasury yields swung following several mixed reports on the U.S. economy. One of the most impactful said that growth for U.S. retailers, finance companies and other businesses in the services sectors accelerated by more last month than economists expected.
Not only that, the report from the Institute for Supply Management also said that a measure of inflation eased to its lowest level since March.
To be sure, company executives are still saying they're feeling pressures from inflation and an uncertain economy. “In general, business is flat,” one business in the agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting industry told the ISM. “Value brands are still experiencing higher demand. But premium brands struggle to maintain market share.”
But any improvements will nevertheless sound good to officials at the Federal Reserve, who are trying to shore up the job market while pushing down on inflation, which has stubbornly remained above the Fed's 2% target.
Separate reports Thursday on the job market offered a mixed view. One said that employers cut back on the number of job openings they were advertising, while a second suggested that employers outside of the government added 41,000 more jobs last month than they cut.
A much more comprehensive look at the health of the U.S. job market will arrive on Friday from the U.S. Labor Department.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.13% from 4.18% late Tuesday following Wednesday's economic reports. But the two-year yield, which more closely tracks expectations for what the Fed will do, held steadier. It edged down to 3.46% from 3.47% from late Tuesday.
The hope on Wall Street is that the economy remains solid enough to avoid a recession but not so strong that it keeps the Federal Reserve from cutting interest rates. The Fed cut its main interest rate three times last year to shore up the slowing job market, but it’s indicated fewer cuts may be ahead because inflation remains high.
Traders are betting on a less than 12% chance that the Fed will cut interest rates at its next meeting later this month. That's down slightly from the day before, according to data from CME Group.
In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed among some sharp moves across Europe and Asia.
Indexes dropped 0.7% in London, 0.9% in Hong Kong and 1.1% in Tokyo, while rising 0.6% in Seoul.
AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed.
Options trader Joseph D'Arrigo works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Joseph Stevens works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Anthony Spina works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Steven Rodriguez works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
A person walks in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
People walk in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's stock prices at a securities firm Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
A person stands in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
A person walks in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
