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Financial Markets 09/10 15:24
NEW YORK (AP) -- U.S. stocks drifted to a mixed finish on Tuesday following
several weeks of sharp swings.
The S&P 500 rose 0.4% to pull within 3% of its record set in July. It
flipped between small gains and losses through the day, but the moves were
nothing like its careens since the summer, driven by worries about the slowing
U.S. economy and whether coming cuts to interest rates will keep it out of a
possible recession.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 92 points, or 0.2%, and the Nasdaq
composite rose 0.8%.
Oracle jumped 11.4% to an all-time high and helped lead the market after
delivering better profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts
expected. Gains for several influential Big Tech stocks also helped drive
indexes, including rises of 2.1% for Microsoft and 2.4% for Amazon.
But banks weighed on the market following discouraging comments from several
executives at an industry conference.
JPMorgan Chase fell 5.2% after its chief operating officer said analysts'
expectations for an underlying measure of its profit may be "too high." Goldman
Sachs dropped 4.4% after its chief executive said its trading revenue for the
current quarter is trending down at the moment. And Ally Financial sank 17.6%
after its chief financial officer warned that borrowers are "struggling with a
high inflation and cost of living and now, more recently, a weakening
employment picture."
Stocks of energy producers were also weak after oil prices fell. A barrel of
Brent crude, the international standard, is near its lowest price since 2021,
and it's been sinking amid worries about how much fuel a fragile global economy
will burn. That helped drag Exxon Mobil down 3.6% and Chevron down 1.5%.
All told, the S&P 500 rose 24.47 points to 5,495.52. The Dow dropped 92.63
to 40,736.96, and the Nasdaq composite added 141.28 to 17,025.88.
In the bond market, Treasury yields eased. The yield on the 10-year Treasury
fell to 3.64% from 3.70% late Monday.
Like stocks, Treasury yields have been swinging sharply ahead of the Federal
Reserve's meeting next week, where the widespread expectation is for it to cut
its main interest rate for the first time since the COVID crash of 2020.
The Fed is turning its focus away from stifling high inflation and toward
protecting the economy. The debate on Wall Street is now focused on how much
the Fed will cut the federal funds rate, which has been sitting at a two-decade
high, and whether the easing will ultimately prove to be too late to prevent a
recession.
Reports coming this week on inflation could influence the size of the Fed's
upcoming cuts. The worst case for the Fed would be if inflation were to
reaccelerate when the job market is weakening, because helping either of those
would require opposing moves.
On Wednesday, though, economists expect the latest report on inflation to
show prices for U.S. consumers were 2.6% higher in August than a year earlier.
That would be a slowdown from July's inflation rate of 2.9%
Ahead of that will be Tuesday evening's debate between Vice President Kamala
Harris and former President Donald Trump. Foreign-exchange strategists at Bank
of America say it could be the next catalyst for the market.
The value of the U.S. dollar has increased against peers in the past when
expectations for a Trump re-election have strengthened, among other moves that
have come to be known as part of the "Trump trade," due in part to his calling
for tariffs. But economists are debating what impact either candidate's
proposed policies would ultimately have on the economy, and the bigger deal may
be whether one party is able to sweep into control of both Congress and the
White House.
Strategists at Wells Fargo Investment Institute are looking for gridlock to
continue, with neither party getting big enough majorities to pass
transformative legislation. Because of that, "we think the economy is much more
likely to move markets than elections," said Paul Christopher, head of global
investment strategy, and Jennifer Timmerman, investment strategy analyst.
In stock markets abroad, indexes fell in much of Europe after finishing
mixed in Asia. Stocks rose 0.2% in Hong Kong and 0.3% in Shanghai after China's
customs office reported the country's exports grew for a fifth consecutive
month, in a sign of growing demand abroad.
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AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Yuri Kageyama contributed.
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