December 25, 2024

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Stock Market Today: Wall Street Swings Ahead of Bank Earnings, Powell’s Testimony This Week

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks were mixed in afternoon trading on Wall Street Monday, hovering around record highs hit last week.

The S&P 500 was little changed. The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.3%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average gave up early gains and fell 49 points, or 0.3%, as of 12:03 p.m. ET.

Specialty glassware maker Corning Inc. rose 10.7%, one of the biggest gains in the market, after raising its sales forecast.

Shares of troubled planemaker Boeing rose 1% after it agreed to plead guilty to criminal fraud charges stemming from two 737 Max crashes that killed 346 people. The government has designated the company violated the agreement Which protected her from prosecution for more than three years.

Entertainment giant Paramount Global Saudi Telecom Company shares fell 2.8% after it agreed to merge with Skydance.

Traders are looking forward to several earnings reports this week including updates from Delta Air Lines on Thursday.

JPMorgan, Citigroup and Wells Fargo are scheduled to report earnings on Friday. The latest on the banks could give Wall Street a clearer picture of how consumers are coping with mounting debt and whether banks are worried about payments and potential defaults.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is set to address Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday. The central bank has kept benchmark interest rates at their highest level in more than two decades in an effort to tame inflation.

The Fed’s goal is to bring inflation down to 2% without slowing economic growth too much. Inflation is still weighing on consumers, but it’s down sharply from its peak two years ago. Economic growth has slowed this year, but remains relatively strong amid a strong labor market and consumer spending.

The central bank is due to give further updates on consumer inflation on Thursday. Wall Street expects the latest government report to show inflation falling to 3.1% in June from 3.3% in May.

The wholesale inflation report, before costs are passed on to consumers, is expected on Friday.

Inflation appears to be stuck around 3% by most measures. That has prompted the Federal Reserve to be more cautious and has tempered expectations for the number of interest rate cuts it may make this year. Most experts expect the Fed to cut rates once this year, but not before September. The Fed holds its next policy meeting later this month.

Treasury yields were relatively steady in the bond market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 4.29% from 4.28% late Friday.

European stocks were mixed after French elections The Greek parliament was left divided between the left, the centre and the far right, with no political faction able to come close to a majority.

Stocks fell in Asia.

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Associated Press business writers Zimu Chung and Matt Ott contributed to this report.