NEW YORK (news agencies) — U.S. stocks are holding relatively steady Thursday as Wall Street counts down to what’s supposed to be the main event of the week, a speech by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell coming on Friday.
The S&P 500 was 0.2% higher in morning trading, just 0.6% below its all-time high set last month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 7 points, or less than 0.1%, as of 10 a.m. Eastern time and the Nasdaq composite was 0.3% higher.
Treasury yields were rising in the bond market following some mixed data on the U.S. economy, which has been slowing under the weight of high interest rates meant to get inflation under control.
One report showed slightly more U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week than expected. The number is still low relative to history, but the uptick could signal a job market that continues to cool.
A second report, meanwhile, suggested U.S. business activity remains deeply split. Growth for services businesses is accelerating, according to preliminary data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. But the country’s manufacturing, which has been one of the areas of the economy hit hardest by high interest rates, appears to be contracting at an even more severe rate.
Overall, the data suggested the U.S. economy is still growing but points to some fragility.
“Growth has become increasingly dependent on the service sector as manufacturing, which often leads the economic cycle, has fallen into decline,” said Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence.
The Fed has pulled its main interest rate to the highest level in more than two decades in hopes of slowing the economy by just enough to stifle inflation but not so much that it causes a recession. With inflation slowing, the wide expectation is for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates at its next meeting in September, which would be the first such easing since the COVID crash of 2020.
That’s why so much attention is on Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where Powell will be speaking Friday at an annual economic symposium that’s been home to big Fed policy announcements in the past. The hope is Powell will give clues about how quickly and deeply the Fed may cut rates to ease conditions for the economy.
In the meantime, U.S. companies continue to report mostly better-than-expected profits for the springtime.
Agilent Technologies rose 1.1% after delivering both profit and revenue for the latest quarter that topped analysts’ forecasts. CEO Padraig McDonnell said market conditions continued to be challenging for the company, which sells instruments and software for laboratories, but “we saw steady signs of improvement as anticipated.”
Internet-connected exercise company Peloton jumped 14.9% after it topped sales forecasts and lost less money in the quarter than analysts were expecting. It achieved modest revenue growth for the first time in more than two years.
Nvidia was the strongest single force pushing the S&P 500 upward and rose 1.1% ahead of its own highly anticipated profit report coming next week.
On the losing side of Wall Street, Snowflake fell 11.6% despite also topping analysts’ expectations for profit and revenue in the latest quarter. It gave a forecast for product revenue in the current quarter that fell short of what analysts were estimating.
Advance Auto Parts tumbled 16.7% after its profit for the latest quarter came up short of Wall Street’s expectations. It cited a “challenging demand environment” and cut its forecast for profit over the full year well below what Wall Street was expecting.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 3.85% from 3.80% late Wednesday.
In stock markets abroad, indexes mostly made modest moves across Asia and Europe. South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.2% after the Bank of Korea decided at its monetary policy meeting to keep rates unchanged.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was an outlier and jumped 1.4%.
news agencies Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed.
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