[NEW YORK] Wall Street stocks shrugged off early weakness and finished mostly higher Monday as markets awaited key earnings amid worries over inflation and the impact on corporate profits.

All three major indices began the session in the red following disappointing Chinese economic data and a lackluster reading on US industrial production.

But the S&P 500 and Nasdaq bounced back, a sign investors remain somewhat sanguine about results later this week from Procter & Gamble, Netflix, Tesla and others following blowout earnings last week from large banks.

"I think there's a little bit more optimism about third-quarter earnings season after last week, and that's buoying the market above some of the economic data," said Ross Mayfield, investment strategy analyst at Baird.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.1 per cent to end the session at 35,258.61.

The broad-based S&P 500 added 0.3 per cent to close at 4,486.46, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 0.8 per cent to 15,021.81.

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Among individual companies, Disney slumped 3.0 per cent following a downgrade by Barclays, which flagged worries about slowing subscription growth for streaming platform Disney+.

Zillow plunged 9.5 per cent as the real estate listing company said it would not sign new contracts to buy more homes before the end of the year. The company said it has an "operational backlog," citing labour and supply constraints.

AFP