NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stock indexes are drifting Monday ahead 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 rose 0.2% in afternoon trading, coming off its first back-to-back weekly losses since April. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 12 points, or less than 0.1%, as of 1:58 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.3% higher.
Oil-and-gas companies were some of the heaviest weights on the market, as the price of crude oil continued its slide. Exxon Mobil fell 1.1%, and Chevron lost 1.3% after a barrel of benchmark U.S. oil slid 1.9%. Oil's price is back to where it was nearly two months ago, in part on expectations for how much crude China's faltering economy will burn.
Helping to offset those losses was ON Semiconductor, which jumped 12.5% after the supplier to the auto and other industries reported stronger profit for the spring than analysts expected. McDonald’s rose 4.4% after flipping a loss from earlier in the morning. It reported profit and revenue for the latest quarter that fell shy of forecasts, but analysts said its performance at U.S. restaurants wasn’t as bad as some investors feared.
Even bigger names are set to report later this week: Microsoft on Tuesday, Facebook parent Meta Platforms on Wednesday, Apple and Amazon on Thursday. Their stock movements carry more weight on Wall Street than virtually anyone else’s because they are among the market's largest by total value.
Such Big Tech stocks had been screaming consistently higher, in part due to investors’ frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology, but they ran out of momentum this month amid criticism they’ve grown too expensive, and as alternatives began to look more attractive. Last week, profit reports from Tesla and Alphabet that investors found underwhelming raised concerns that other stocks in what’s known as the “Magnificent Seven” could also fail to impress.
What’s helped support the U.S. stock market even as these behemoths weaken is strength from other areas that had been beaten down by high interest rates meant to get inflation under control. Smaller stocks in particular have soared on expectations that slowing inflation will get the Federal Reserve to soon begin cutting interest rates.
The smaller stocks in the Russell 2000 index slumped 1.4% Monday, but they're still up by a market-leading 8.9% for the month so far.
The Fed will hold its latest policy meeting on interest rates this week, and an announcement will come on Wednesday. Virtually no one expects a move then, but the widespread expectation is that it will begin easing at its following meeting in September.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury slipped to 4.18% from 4.19% late Friday and from 4.70% in April.
In stock markets abroad, Japan’s Nikkei 225 index jumped 2.1%. Its central bank will also announce a decision on interest rates this week. Expectations are for it to raise interest rates.
Indexes rose 1.3% in Hong Kong and were roughly flat in Shanghai after official data on Saturday showed industrial profits rose 3.5% in the first half of 2024 from a year earlier. That was a glimmer of positive news following recent cuts to interest rates and other piecemeal stimulus that followed a top-level policy meeting of the ruling Communist Party earlier this month.
The FTSE 100 edged up by 0.1% in London ahead of a meeting for the Bank of England this week, where some investors expect to see a cut in interest rates.
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AP Business Writer Matt Ott contributed.
