Stock market today: Wall Street drifts in mixed trading at the start of a frenetic week
By Matt Ott, The Associated Press on July 29, 2024.
NEW YORK (AP) – Stocls are mostly rising at the start of a week full of earnings reports from Wall Street’s most influential companies and a Federal Reserve meeting on interest rates. The S&P 500 was 0.2% higher in early trading Monday, coming off its first back-to-back weekly losses since April. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 71 points, or 0.2%, and the Nasdaq composite was up 0.5%. ON Semiconductor jumped 8% after the supplier to the auto and other industries reported stronger profit for the spring than analysts expected. Microsoft reports its results on Tuesday, Apple and Amazon on Wednesday and Meta Platforms on Thursday. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below. Wall Street was poised to open Monday with gains ahead of a busy week chock full of earnings and other market-moving events. Futures for the S&P 500 advanced 0.5% while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.4%. The U.S. Federal Reserve will wrap up its policy meeting on Wednesday and is expected to keep its benchmark rate unchanged. But it might provide further support for a rate cut in September. This week also will bring U.S. jobs data on Friday. “In a monumental week for macro watchers, everyone is hoping for calm while bracing for the inevitable storm of volatility,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary. Since the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates in March 2022 to counter inflation, he added, “the big market blunder has been prematurely anticipating rate cuts – way too early and far too aggressively. It’s like expecting dessert before finishing the main course.” Earnings seasons also gains steam this week, with more than 170 companies in the S&P 500 reporting. Four of the so-called Magnificent Seven report this week: Microsoft on Tuesday, Meta on Wednesday and Amazon and Apple on Thursday. McDonald’s ticked up less than 1% before markets opened Monday despite the burger chain posting weak second-quarter sales. Sales at locations open at least a year fell 1% worldwide across every company segment in the April-June period, the first decline since the final quarter of 2020 when the pandemic shuttered stores. In the U.S., same-store sales fell nearly 1%. In Europe at midday, Germany’s DAX picked up 0.2%, while the CAC 40 was down 0.5%. In London, the FTSE was up 0.9%. In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 index surged 2.1% to 38,468.63. The key focus in Asian markets this week will be the Bank of Japan’s monetary policy meeting on Wednesday, where investors widely expect the central bank to raise its key interest rate from its near-zero level to perhaps up to 0.3%. The Japanese yen was slightly firmer against the U.S. dollar on early Monday, but then reversed direction, with the dollar trading at 153.91 yen, up from 153.72 yen. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng added 1.3% to 17,248.34. Shares in Fuyao Glass, a manufacturer of automotive glass, fell 5.9% after reports said one of Fuyao Glass America’s facilities in Moraine, Ohio, was raided by U.S. law enforcement agencies on Friday. “Fuyao America will fully cooperate with the investigation by the U.S. Government agencies,” the company said in a notice to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The Shanghai Composite index was nearly unchanged at 2,891.85 after official data on Saturday showed that industrial profits rose 3.5% in the first half of 2024 compared with last year. That was a glimmer of positive news following recent interest rate cuts and other piecemeal stimulus that followed a top-level policy meeting of the ruling Communist Party earlier this month. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 advanced 0.9% to 7,989.60. In South Korea, the Kospi jumped 1.2%, to 2,765.53. Elsewhere, Taiwan’s Taiex gained 0.2%. The SET in Bangkok was closed for a holiday. In other dealings early Monday, U.S. benchmark crude oil fell 24 cents to $76.92 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, the international standard, was down 28 cents at $80 per barrel. The euro fell to $1.0817 from $1.0857. Bitcoin rose to $69,724 flirting with all-time highs. On Friday, the S&P 500 jumped 1.1% for its best day in seven weeks after 3M and several other big companies delivered better profits for the spring than analysts expected. The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared 1.6% and the Nasdaq composite climbed 1%. Stocks broadly got a boost from an update on inflation, which further cemented investors’ expectations for coming cuts to interest rates. 25-24
