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

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are slightly higher in early trading on Wall Street, adding to the record highs they reached last week. The S&P 500 rose 0.2% in the first few minutes of trading Monday. The Nasdaq rose 0.1% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 233 points, or 0.6%. Traders are looking ahead to several earnings reports this week, including updates from Delta Air Lines on Thursday and JPMorgan, Citigroup and Wells Fargo on Friday. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell will address Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday. Treasury yields rose slightly in the bond market.

THIS IS AN URGENT NEWS UPDATE. Below is the earlier AP story.

Wall Street was a mixed bag on Monday, with some small gains and some losses as earnings season gets underway and another busy week for the Federal Reserve and its inflation watchers.

Futures on the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average were up less than 0.1% in pre-market trading.

Entertainment giant Paramount Global rose another 2.1% after agreeing to a merger with Skydance. Several companies have sought to acquire Paramount, which owns CBS and is behind hits like “Top Gun” and “The Godfather.” Paramount shares have risen about 25% since mid-June.

Boeing rose about 1% in early trading Monday after the aerospace giant agreed to plead guilty to criminal fraud charges related to two 737 Max crashes that killed 346 people. The government found that the company violated an agreement that shielded it from prosecution for more than three years, the Justice Department said Sunday evening.

This week, as earnings season picks up steam, several major banks will release their quarterly earnings. JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo will report on Friday. Delta Air Lines and PepsiCo will report on Thursday.

Also this week, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell testifies before Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday. Powell’s comments will be closely watched for clues about the Fed’s interest-rate policy. The Fed has kept its benchmark lending rate at its highest level in more than two decades as it tries to tamp down persistent inflation that has emerged as the U.S. economy rebounded from a brief but sharp pandemic recession.

Powell and other Fed officials will be watching the government’s latest inflation data due Thursday and Friday. While inflation has slowed over the past two years, it remains above the Fed’s 2% target. Most experts expect the Fed to cut interest rates once this year, but not before September. The Fed will maintain its next policy at the end of this month.

Elsewhere, Asian shares fell while European markets rose on Monday after French elections left parliament divided into left, centre and far right, with no political faction coming close to winning a majority.

The CAC-40 large-cap index recovered losses from the beginning of the session and rose 0.3%.

Analysts say the markets’ biggest fear was a majority for either the leftist New National Front or the anti-immigration National Rally led by Marine Le Pen. Both parties have made spending promises that have raised fears that France’s already large deficit will grow. That has already led to a sell-off in French government bonds.

Although such an outcome was avoided, France now faces weeks of uncertainty as there is no clear majority for any of the main political forces in parliament to back a new government after Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said he would resign. That increases the likelihood that any new government will struggle to pass legislation and make tough spending decisions to prevent the country’s debt and deficit from spiraling out of control.

“The fact that the left has become the strongest group in parliament is a cause for serious concern,” said Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg bank. “France is heading towards a period of political uncertainty and, most likely, fiscal problems and some reversal of President Emmanuel Macron’s growth reforms.”

The euro rose to $1.0830.

In Europe, the German DAX was up 0.4% at midday and London’s FTSE 100 was up 0.3%.

In Tokyo, the benchmark Nikkei 225 index fell 0.3% to 40,780.70 despite official data showing real wages fell 1.4% year-on-year in May, marking a 26th straight month of declines, as a weakening yen and higher commodity costs pushed up the cost of imports. While nominal wages rose 1.9%.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell 1.6% to 17,524.06, while the Shanghai Composite index shed 0.9% to 2,922.45.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.8% to 7,763.20, while South Korea’s Kospi index fell 0.2% to 2,857.76.

U.S. crude oil lost 80 cents on Monday, falling to $82.36 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The price of Brent crude, the international standard, fell 67 cents to $85.87 a barrel.

The U.S. dollar rose to 160.92 Japanese yen from 160.72 yen.

The US stock market hit new records on Friday, supported by a much-anticipated jobs report.

The S&P 500 rose 0.5% to 5,567.19 on Friday, setting an all-time high for the third straight day after Thursday’s July 4 holiday break. The index has set 34 records and is up nearly 17% this year, a little more than halfway through.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.2% to 39,375.87 points, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.9% to 18,352.76 points.

Zimo Zhong and Matt Ott, Associated Press