US: Stocks rise, extending market rally

WALL Street stocks rose Monday (Jul 17), extending a market rally ahead of major earnings reports and economic releases this week.

Major indices opened indecisively but picked up momentum over the day, adding to an equity upswing following last week’s benign inflation data and better-than-expected earnings from JPMorgan Chase and other banks.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up 0.2 per cent at 34,585.35.

The broad-based S&P 500 added 0.4 per cent at 4,522.79, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 0.9 per cent to 14,244.95.

This week’s calendar includes results from Bank of America, Tesla and Netflix.

“The key to the stock market remains the mega-cap tech trade and many traders won’t do any major positioning until we hear from Netflix and Tesla,” said Oanda’s Edward Moya.

Among individual companies, Ford shares dropped 5.9 per cent as it announced steep price cuts on its F-150 Lightning electric trucks. The automaker said an upgrade of its Michigan factory will enable it to triple output of the pickup trucks beginning this fall.

But shares of electric vehicle maker Tesla jumped 3.2 per cent as it announced that it had produced its first Cybertruck at its huge plant near Austin, Texas.

The space-age like pickup has been eagerly anticipated since chief executive Elon Musk first unveiled a prototype in November 2019.

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US: S&P 500, Nasdaq start week higher as investors await more results

The week’s economic data releases include US retail sales and housing starts for June. AFP