An NYSE sign is seen on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, on June 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
By Stan Choe
Stocks are largely stuck on Tuesday as Wall Street waits for updates later in the week on inflation and corporate profits.
The S&P 500 was 0.1% higher in early trading and looks to be on track for another quiet day after a listless Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 111 points, or 0.3%, at 34,055, as of 9:45 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was virtually unchanged.
Salesforce jumped to one of the S&P 500 's bigger gains, up 3.2%, after it announced the first increase in list prices for several product lines in seven years. Amazon was also pushing upward on the market, rising 1.5% on the first day of the annual Prime Day sales event it created.
The week’s main event will arrive on Wednesday, when the U.S. government will offer the latest update on inflation at the consumer level. Economists expect to see another slowdown, with prices 3.1% higher in June than a year earlier, down from inflation of 4% in May and just above 9% last summer.
The hope on Wall Street is that a continued easing in inflation will convince the Federal Reserve to stop its hikes to interest rates soon. High rates have helped pull down inflation, but they’ve also caused cracks in the banking, manufacturing and other industries while also pulling down on prices for stocks and other investments.
Later in the week, companies will begin telling investors how much profit they made during the spring, and expectations for that are largely dim. Analysts are forecasting the sharpest drop in earnings per share for S&P 500 companies since the pandemic was crushing the global economy in the spring of 2020.
Because of the low bar set for companies, though, they may be able to squeak past without much heroics.
WD-40 jumped 13% after it said it returned to growth in revenue during the three months through May following two straight quarters of flat to down sales. It reported stronger growth in both profit and revenue than analysts expected, and it said it’s sticking with its forecasts for full-year sales and profit.
On the losing side of Wall Street was Bank of America. It slipped 0.6% after regulators ordered it to repay $100 million to customers after they said it double-dipped on fees, withheld rewards on credit cards and opened accounts without customers' knowledge.
In the bond market, Treasury yields were holding relatively steady after rising sharply last week on expectations that the Fed will keep interest rates higher for longer in its campaign to get inflation under control.
The 10-year Treasury yield slipped to 3.99% from 4.00% late Monday. It helps set rates for mortgages and other loans.
The two-year Treasury yield, which moves more on expectations for the Fed, inched up 4.87% from 4.86%.
In markets abroad, most stock indexes rose. Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 1%, South Korea's Kospi jumped 1.7% and France's CAC 40 rose 1.3%.
Stocks in London were basically flat after a report showed U.K. wages are rising at a record rate amid stubbornly high inflation. That's bolstering expectations for the central bank there to keep raising interest rates.
AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Joe McDonald contributed.
A big-screen adaptation of the anime “Chainsaw Man” has topped the North American box office, beating a Springsteen biopic and “Black Phone 2.” The movie earned $17.25 million in the U.S. and Canada this weekend. “Black Phone 2” fell to second place with $13 million. Two new releases, the rom-com “Regretting You” and “Springsteen — Deliver Me From Nowhere,” earned $12.85 million and $9.1 million, respectively. “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc” is based on the manga series about a demon hunter. It's another win for Sony-owned Crunchyroll, which also released a “Demon Slayer” film last month that debuted to a record $70 million.
The Federal Aviation Administration says flights departing for Los Angeles International Airport were halted briefly due to a staffing shortage at a Southern California air traffic facility. The FAA issued a temporary ground stop at one of the world’s busiest airports on Sunday morning soon after U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy predicted that travelers would see more flights delayed as the nation’s air traffic controllers work without pay during the federal government shutdown. The hold on planes taking off for LAX lasted an hour and 45 minutes and didn't appear to cause continued problems. The FAA said staffing shortages also delayed planes headed to Washington, Chicago and Newark, New Jersey on Sunday.
Boeing workers at three Midwest plants where military aircraft and weapons are developed have voted to reject the company’s latest contract offer and to continue a strike that started almost three months ago. The strike by about 3,200 machinists at the plants in the Missouri cities of St. Louis and St. Charles, and in Mascoutah, Illinois, is smaller in scale than a walkout last year by 33,000 Boeing workers who assemble commercial jetliners. The president of the International Association of Machinists says Sunday's outcome shows Boeing hasn't adequately addressed wages and retirement benefits. Boeing says Sunday's vote was close with 51% of union members opposing the revised offer.
The stunning indictment that led to the arrest of more than 30 people — including Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and other NBA figures — has drawn new scrutiny of the booming business of sports betting in the U.S. The multibillion-dollar industry has made it easy for sports fans — and even some players — to wager on everything from the outcome of games to that of a single play with just a few taps of a cellphone. But regulating the rapidly-growing industry has proven to be a challenge. Professional sports leagues’ own role in promoting gambling has also raised eyebrows.
Tesla, the car company run by Elon Musk, reported Wednesday that it sold more vehicles in the past three months after boycotts hit hard earlier this year, but profits still fell sharply. Third-quarter earnings fell to $1.4 billion, from $2.2 billion a year earlier. Excluding charges, per share profit of 50 cents came in below analysts' estimate. Tesla shares fell 3.5% in after-hours trading. Musk said the company's robotaxi service, which is available in Austin, Texas, and San Francisco, will roll out to as many as 10 other metro areas by the end of the year.
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