Wall Street had a muted day of trading on Monday, with major stock indexes mixed and more market milestones.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 and Nasdaq Composite rose 0.1% and 0.3%, respectively, to record highs, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average gave up early gains to close down 0.1%.
The index has been climbing steadily over the past few months, helping to propel the benchmark S&P 500 to a record high of 35 this year.
“The current market is strong and stable in an almost unprecedented way,” said Mark Hackett, head of investment research at Nationwide. “To have such consistent gains with so little volatility is highly unusual.”
Gains in technology stocks, including several semiconductor makers, helped cushion losses in the communication services, energy and other sectors of the S&P 500. Nvidia rose 1.9%, Broadcom gained 2.5% and Advanced Micro Devices closed up 3.9%.
Corning, the specialty glass maker, jumped 12% on Monday, the market’s biggest gainer, after raising its sales forecast.
Shares in Boeing rose 0.5% after the struggling aircraft maker agreed to plead guilty to fraud charges stemming from two crashes of its 737 Max jetliner that killed 346 people. The government found the company violated an agreement that had given it immunity from prosecution for more than three years.
Entertainment giant Paramount Global fell 5.3%, the biggest drop among S&P 500 stocks, after it agreed to a merger with Skydance.
Overall, the S&P 500 rose 5.66 points to 5,572.85. The Nasdaq gained 50.98 points to close at 18,403.74. The Dow fell 31.08 points to 39,344.79.
Traders are keeping a close eye on several earnings reports this week, including Delta Air Lines’ earnings release on Thursday.
JPMorgan, Citigroup and Wells Fargo are due to report earnings on Friday, and the banks’ latest earnings releases could give Wall Street a clearer view into how consumers are handling rising debt and whether banks are worried about potential payments or late payments.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome H. Powell will address Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday as the central bank keeps its benchmark interest rate at its highest in more than two decades to tame inflation.
The Fed’s goal is to keep inflation at 2% without slowing economic growth too much. Inflation is still weighing on consumers, but it’s down significantly from a peak two years ago. Economic growth has slowed this year but has remained relatively strong thanks to a strong job market and consumer spending.
The central bank is due to get a further update on consumer-level inflation on Thursday, and Wall Street expects the latest government report to show inflation falling to 3.1% in June from 3.3% in May.
A report on inflation at the wholesale level, before costs are passed on to consumers, is due to be released on Friday.
Inflation appears to be stagnating around 3% for most measures. This has made the Fed more cautious and lowered expectations for the number of rate cuts this year. Most experts expect the Fed to cut rates once this year, but not until September. The Fed next meets later this month.
In the bond market, Treasury yields remained relatively stable. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 4.27% from Friday’s close of 4.28%.
European stocks were mixed after France’s election left parliament split between the left, center and far right, with no party coming close to a majority.
Asian stocks fell.
Troyes and Veiga contributed to the Associated Press.
