Wall Street is holding relatively steady following a mixed set of profit reports from big U.S. companies. The S&P 500 was 0.2% higher in early trading Tuesday, a day after slipping from its all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 23 points, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.3% higher. Eli Lilly jumped after it showed how much profit it’s making from soaring demand for its weight-loss and diabetes treatments. Palantir Technologies also leaped as it rides a frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology. Treasury yields in the bond market held steadier after charging higher in recent days.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
(AP) — Wall Street was mixed early Tuesday as corporate earnings stream in and hopes dwindle for a March interest rate cut.
Futures for the S&P 500 ticked up less than 0.1% before the bell, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed less than 0.1%.
It’s becoming more accepted that the Federal Reserve won’t be cutting interest rates until spring and maybe even summer. Recent data has confirmed that the U.S. economy remains strong, despite the Fed’s effort to cool it off with interest rate hikes meant to curb inflation.
A report Monday showed that U.S. services industries are growing faster than expected. The Institute for Supply Management’s report followed Friday’s blowout jobs report, which reflected a still-strong labor market, despite mounting layoffs.
Some traders are now betting that Fed’s projected interest rate cuts will be pushed back to June instead of May, according to data from CME Group.
In equities trading, Tesla continued its slide, falling more than 2% in premarket. Elon Musk’s electric car company has lost more than a quarter of its value in the first five weeks of 2024 as recalls mount and doubt on Wall Street grow about the Tesla’s future earnings potential.
FMC tumbled 14% in premarket after the Philadelphia chemical maker’s sales and profit fell short of Wall Street expectations. FMC’s results helped drag much of the sector down.
Streaming music and podcast platform Spotify jumped more than 6% after it reported stronger-than-expected growth in its subscriber base, even as revenue missed analyst targets.
With earnings season at about the midway point, there are still plenty of heavyweights reporting this week including CVS Health, The Walt Disney Co. and PepsiCo.
Elsewhere, Chinese markets bounced back after a state investment fund said it would step up stock purchases and a report said leader Xi Jinping was set to meet with officials to discuss the markets.
Bloomberg reported that Xi was to be briefed by officials about the markets, underscoring the ruling Communist Party’s concern over a slump that has wiped out trillions of dollars in market value over the past several years. Citing unnamed officials, the report said the timing of the briefing was uncertain. It could not be confirmed.
But Chinese markets jumped after it was published, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng surging 4% to 16,133.60 in a rally led by technology shares such as e-commerce giant Alibaba, which gained 7.6% and JD.com, which was up 7.8%. Online food delivery company Meituan jumped 6.5%.
The Shanghai Composite index climbed 3.2% to 2,789.49. In China’s smaller main market, the Shenzhen Component index soared 6.2%, while the CSI 1000, an exchange-traded fund that often is used to track so-called “snowball derivatives,” investment products that can pay big gains but also can result in exaggerated losses, advanced 7%.
The latest salvo in the government’s campaign to prop up sagging markets came with a promise by Central Huijin Investment, whose subsidiaries include many Chinese state-run banks, to expand its purchases of stock index funds.
The fund periodically steps up buying of shares in big state-owned banks and other companies to counter heavy selling pressure in the Chinese markets. On Monday, benchmarks in Shanghai and the smaller market in Shenzhen bounced between small gains and big losses, while share prices of state-run banks and other big companies rose.
Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index fell 0.5% to 36,160.66 and the Kospi in South Korea lost 0.6%, to 2,576.20.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 shed 0.6% to 7,581.60
In Bangkok, the SET gained 0.9%, while India’s Sensex rose 0.6%.
Germany’s DAX rose 0.2% at midday in Europe and the CAC 40 in Paris was up 0.4%. Britain’s FTSE 100 added 0.6%.
In other trading Tuesday, U.S. benchmark crude oil gained 66 cents to $73.44 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, the international standard, was up 71 cents at $78.70 per barrel.
The dollar slid to 148.47 Japanese yen from 148.68 yen. The euro ticked down to $1.0742 from $1.0743.
On Monday, the S&P 500 fell 0.3% from an all-time high set Friday. The Dow industrials dropped 0.7% and the Nasdaq composite edged down by 0.2%.
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