Stan Cho, Associated Press
29 minutes ago
FILE – The “Fearless Girl” statue stands in front of the New York Stock Exchange on March 19, 2024 in New York. (AP Photo/Eduardo Muñoz Alvarez, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks rose Tuesday, building on a strong start to the week.
The S&P 500 rose 0.4% in early trading, further climbing out of the hole left by a six-day losing streak. As of 9:35 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 81 points, or 0.2%, and the Nasdaq Composite was up 0.5%.
A flurry of financial results is influencing trading. GE Aerospace rose 2.9% after reporting profit for the latest quarter that beat analysts’ expectations. General Motors rose 4% after beating expectations on sales of pickup trucks and other high-margin vehicles. Kimberly-Clark rose 7% after the maker of Huggies, Kleenex and Cortex reported better-than-expected first-quarter profits and raised its full-year profit forecast.
These helped to mask Nucor’s 5.2% decline after the steelmaker missed expectations in both profit and revenue. MSCI, whose investment index guides much of the industry, fell 10% after reporting weaker-than-expected earnings growth.
Sherwin-Williams similarly missed expectations, falling 3.5% as sales of new home paints slumped amid industry challenges caused by high mortgage rates.
JetBlue Airways fell 12.2% despite beating expectations in its latest quarter. Future earnings forecasts were lower than some analysts expected. Other airlines also slumped, including American Airlines, which fell 3.4%.
The main event in the market can occur after the day’s close. At that time, Tesla will be the first of the Magnificent Seven stocks that accounted for most of the S&P 500’s gains last year to report first-quarter results. Expectations are high after a handful of stocks soared and posted big gains in 2023, and will need to at least match that to justify the price.
While skeptics still say the overall stock market is too expensive, only companies that generate higher profits or lower interest rates will soften criticism. The latter seems unlikely.
Federal Reserve officials warned last week that it may be necessary to keep interest rates high for some time to ensure inflation falls to its 2% target. This was a huge disappointment for financial markets, ruining hopes that had been building since the Fed earlier indicated there could be three rate cuts this year.
After inflation cooled sharply last year, interest rate cuts appeared to be on the horizon. But a series of reports showing that inflation has remained higher than expected this year have raised concerns that progress could stall.
In the bond market, the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield rose to 4.63% from 4.61% late Monday.
In overseas stock markets, indexes rose in most of Europe. They were mixed early in Asia. Stocks rose 1.9% in Hong Kong, but fell 0.7% in Shanghai.
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AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Zimo Zhong contributed.
