Stock Market Today: Wall Street Drifts Around Its Record Highs
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stock indexes are hanging near their all-time highs in quiet trading on Monday.
The S&P 500 was 0.1% higher in early trading, coming off its fifth winning week in the last six, and flitting around its record set on Thursday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 70 points, or 0.2%, coming off its own record set Friday. The Nasdaq composite was 0.1% higher, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time.
A gain of 4.3% for Constellation Energy was helping to lead the market. It was adding to the stock’s surge of 22.3% on Friday after the company said it would restart the Three Mile Island nuclear plant and sell the power to Microsoft.
Intel rose 1.3% as it continues its climb following reports that Qualcomm is interested in buying parts or all of the chip company. Qualcomm was basically flat.
Financial markets have been generally romping higher after the Federal Reserve last week cut its main interest rate for the first time in more than four years by an unusually large amount. The hope is that as it continues to cut interest rates, the boost given to the U.S. economy will help it avoid a recession.
But some critics say the Federal Reserve may have moved too late, with the job market already slowing, and call stock prices too high.
Several reports coming this week could offer more context about where the U.S. economy stands. One coming later in the morning will give a preliminary update on U.S. business activity. Others later in the week will offer the final reading for the U.S. economy’s growth in the spring and a look at how much U.S. consumers are spending.
Such economic reports, particularly on the job market, are taking top priority on Wall Street because the main fear is now a slowdown in the job market. It’s a notable shift from prior years, when the most attention was on anything related to inflation.
But now that inflation has come down substantially from its peak two summers ago, the Fed has shifted gears.
It feels less need to keep rates high in order to slow the economy enough to stifle inflation, hence last week’s cut of half a percentage point to its main interest rate. And it feels more pressure to prop up the job market and overall economy, hence its commitment to keep cutting interest rates this year and next.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury edged up to 3.75% from 3.74% late Friday. The yield on the two-year Treasury, which moves more with expectations for Fed action, edged down to 3.59% from 3.60% late Friday.
In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed in Europe after preliminary data suggested business activity in the euro zone is weaker than economists expected. Germany’s DAX rose 0.7%, while the French CAC 40 was basically flat.
In Asia, movements for indexes were also muted. Indexes rose 0.4% in Shanghai but slipped 0.1% in Hong Kong after China’s central bank lowered its 14-day reverse repurchase rate on Monday. That followed its decision to keep key lending rates unchanged last week, when investors had been expecting a cut.
