US: Stocks end choppy session modestly higher
WALL Street stocks finished a choppy session narrowly positive on Monday (Jul 31) ahead of key economic and earnings releases later in the week.
Analysts pointed to investor caution during the wait for quarterly results from Apple, Amazon and several other large companies, as well as a trove of macroeconomic reports including Friday’s US labour data for July.
“Many traders won’t do much positioning until Friday’s non-farm payrolls report, which should show the labour market remains tight,” said Oanda’s Edward Moya.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up 0.3 per cent at 35,559.53.
The broad-based S&P 500 added 0.2 per cent at 4,588.96, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index also won 0.2 per cent to 14,346.02.
After a strong first half of 2023, US equities have continued to trend higher in July behind hopes that the Federal Reserve will soon relent on interest rate hikes and that the American economy can avoid recession.
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Chicago Fed president Austan Goolsbee left open the possibility of pausing or stopping interest rate hikes at the central bank’s next policy meeting in September.
“Thus far we’re on the golden path and we’ve got to walk that line,” Goolsbee told Yahoo! Finance, referring to the path of lowering inflation without triggering a major recession.
Among individual firms, Johnson & Johnson shares tumbled 4.0 per cent after a US bankruptcy judge rejected the pharma company’s effort to wall itself off from talcum powder litigation by creating a subsidiary that would be bankrupted.
J&J said it would appeal the ruling.
Besides Apple and Amazon, this week’s earnings calendar includes Caterpillar, Merck and Pfizer. AFP
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