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NYSE
Stocks were little changed Monday as Wall Street braced for quarterly reports from some of the biggest companies in the world.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average traded 25 points lower, or 0.1%. The S&P 500 climbed 0.4%, while the Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.3%.
Stocks are coming off a winning week that saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average gain 2.3% to notch its best weekly gain since March. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite added 2.4% and 3.3%, respectively. On Friday, the Dow rose 113.89 points, or 0.33%, while the S&P and Nasdaq slipped 0.1% and 0.18%, respectively.
The moves came on the heels of solid big bank earnings and softer inflation reports that lifted investor sentiment. That heightened some hopes the Federal Reserve may be able to tamp down inflation without tipping the economy into a recession.
“It’s the Goldilocks scenario, it’s inflation coming down with near record low unemployment,” Kathryn Rooney Vera, chief market strategist at StoneX, told CNBC’s “Last Call” on Friday. “Yes, people have some pain … with prices, but they have jobs. Evidence is increasingly favorable for the soft landing viewpoint, and immaculate disinflation is what has the market going crazy.”
Second-quarter earnings season gains steam this week with results from big financial institutions such as Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. Results are also due from United Airlines, Las Vegas Sands and technology giants Tesla and Netflix.
Wall Street are bracing for what be a gloomy season with lower profits. Analysts forecast a more than 7% decline in S&P 500 earnings from a year ago, according to FactSet.
This week also ushers in the Fed’s “blackout period” ahead of its July policy meeting. Traders anticipate a near 97% chance the central bank increases interest rates later this month, after pausing hikes in June, according to CME Group’s FedWatch tool.
