NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are drifting higher Monday to add to their all-time high.
The S&P 500 was up 0.6% in morning trading and building on its record set on Friday. The Nasdaq composite was 1% higher, as of 10:10 a.m. Eastern time, as gains for Nvidia, Apple and other Big Tech stocks led the way.
But roughly as many stocks were falling on Wall Street as rising, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was pulling back by 37 points, or 0.1%, from its record set last week.
The mixed movements followed relatively quiet trading in Europe, while the U.S. bond market will remain closed for the day because of a holiday.
The strongest action in global markets came from China, where the finance minister gave a highly anticipated update on Saturday about plans for the world’s second-largest economy. Lan Fo’an said the government is looking at additional ways to boost the economy, but he stopped short of unveiling a major new stimulus plan that investors were hoping for.
The lack of detail sent markets spinning. Stocks in Shanghai jumped 2.1%, but the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong fell 0.7%. Crude oil prices, meanwhile, sank more than 1% on worries about demand from China’s slowing economy.
Hopes for big stimulus in China have sent Chinese stocks sharply higher after they languished for years. But investors are skeptical about how much it can remake and restore the economy.
“While clearly welcome, the efforts may be insufficient to spur a new reflationary cycle,” according to Lisa Shalett, chief investment officer at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management.
Besides oil, prices also fell for copper and other commodities that a healthy Chinese economy would gobble up. That helped drive down prices for miners, such as Freeport-McMoRan, which fell 2.9% for one of the larger losses in the S&P 500.
Boeing lost 2.8% in its first trading since the aerospace giant warned that it expects to report that it burned through $1.3 billion in cash during the latest quarter and lost $9.97 per share. Boeing also said it was laying off 10% of its workforce as it tries to deal with a strike that is crippling production of the company’s best-selling airline planes.
On the winning side of Wall Street was SoFi Technologies. It rose 8.9% after announcing a $2 billion loan platform agreement with investment firm Fortress Investment Group, where SoFi will refer pre-qualified borrowers.
Longboard Pharmaceuticals soared 51.1% after H. Lundbeck, a Danish company, said it would buy the biopharmaceutical company in an all-cash deal valuing it at $2.6 billion.
This upcoming week will have few top-tier economic reports outside Thursday’s update on sales at U.S. retailers to help guide trading. That will likely leave more emphasis on corporate earnings reports, which will pick up the pace this week after big banks began the reporting season last week.
Bank of America, Johnson and Johnson and UnitedHealth Group will all report their latest results on Tuesday. Later in the week will come United Airlines, Netflix, American Express and Procter & Gamble.
___
AP Business Writer Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.
http://accesswdun.com/article/2024/10/1266948