NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are wavering in afternoon trading on Wall Street Monday, hovering around the record highs they set last week.
The S&P 500 was mostly unchanged. The Nasdaq rose 0.2%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average gave up an early gain and was down 75 points, or 0.2% as of 1:24 p.m. Eastern.
Major indexes have been gaining ground steadily over the last several months and that has helped push the benchmark S&P 500 index to 34 records so far this year.
“The current market is positive and steady to a nearly unprecedented degree,” said Mark Hackett, chief of investment research at Nationwide. “It’s extremely rare to see these types of consistent gains with almost no volatility.”
Specialty glassware maker Corning surged 13.3% for one of the biggest gains in the market Monday after raising its sales forecast.
Troubled airplane maker Boeing fell 0.8% after agreeing to plead guilty to a criminal fraud charge stemming from two crashes of 737 Max jetliners that killed 346 people. The government determined the company violated an agreement that had protected it from prosecution for more than three years.
Entertainment giant Paramount Global fell 3.6% after it agreed to merge with Skydance.
Traders are looking ahead to several earnings reports this week including updates from Delta Air Lines on Thursday.
JPMorgan, Citigroup and Wells Fargo will report results on Friday. The latest updates for banks could give Wall Street a clearer picture on how consumers are handling increased debt and whether banks are worried about payments and potential delinquencies.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell addresses Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday. The central bank has kept its benchmark interest rate at its highest level in more than two decades in an effort to tame inflation.
The Fed's goal is to cool inflation back to 2% without slowing economic growth too much. Inflation is still squeezing consumers, but it has fallen significantly from its peak two years ago. Economic growth has slowed this year, but it remains relatively strong amid a solid jobs market and consumer spending.
The central bank will get more updates on inflation at the consumer level on Thursday. Wall Street expects the latest government report to show inflation easing to 3.1% in June from 3.3% in May.
A report for inflation at the wholesale level, before costs are passed on to consumers, is expected Friday.
Inflation is seemingly stuck at around 3% by most measures. That has prompted more caution from the Fed and dampened expectations for the number of anticipated rate cuts this year. Most experts are expecting one rate cut from the Fed this year, but not until September. The Fed holds its next policy meeting later this month.
Treasury yields were relatively stable in the bond market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.27% from 4.28% late Friday.
European stocks were mixed after France’s elections left its legislature divided among left, center and far right, with no single political faction getting close to a majority.
Stocks in Asia fell.
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AP Business Writers Zimo Zhong and Matt Ott contributed to this report.
