Wall Street holds steady just below recent records

Summary

Wall Street capped a choppy day of trading Tuesday with slight gains for stocks, leaving the major indexes just below their recent all-time highs.

The S&P 500 closed 0.4% higher after wavering between small gains and losses for much of the day. The benchmark index finished just 2.6 points below its record high set earlier this month and short of recouping all of its losses from the day before.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average also bounced back from an early slide, finishing with a 0.3% gain. The Nasdaq composite added 0.4%.

The market's uneven start to the week comes after Wall Street notched big gains last week on hopes for interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve.

Gains in technology, financial and industrial stocks helped outweigh losses in communication services and other sectors. Chipmaking giant Nvidia rose 1.1% and JPMorgan Chase added 1.2%.

Boeing rose 3.5% for one of the biggest gains among S&P 500 companies after Korean Air announced a $50 billion deal with the company that includes buying more than 100 aircraft. Dish Network parent EchoStar surged 70.2% after AT&T said it will buy some of its wireless spectrum licenses in a $23 billion deal.

Treasury yields mostly fell in the bond market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.26% from 4.28% late Monday.

The broader market remained subdued following President Donald Trump's escalation of his fight with the Federal Reserve. On Monday, he said that he's removing Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. Cook's lawyer said she'll sue Trump's administration to try to prevent him from firing her.

It marks the latest escalation in his dispute with the central bank over its cautious interest rate policy. The Fed has held rates steady since late 2024 over worries that Trump's unpredictable tariff policy will reignite inflation. Trump has also threatened to fire Fed Chair Jerome Powell, often taunting him with name-calling. Still, he is only one of 12 votes that decides interest rate policy.

"We will continue to monitor rising political pressure on the Fed but expect its decision-making to remain guided by its mandate in the near term," said Ulrike Hoffmann-Burchardi, chief investment officer for the Americas and global head of equities at UBS Global Wealth Management.

Wall Street is still betting that the Fed will trim its benchmark interest rate at its next meeting in September. Traders see an 87% chance that the central bank will cut the rate by a quarter of a percentage point, according to data from CME Group.

The two-year Treasury yield, which more closely tracks expectations for Fed action, slipped to to 3.68% from 3.73% late Friday.

The Federal Reserve spent much of the last several years fighting rising inflation by raising interest rates. It managed to mostly tame inflation and avoided having those higher rates stall economic growth, thanks largely to strong consumer spending and a resilient job market.

The Fed started shifting its policy by cutting its benchmark interest rate late in 2024 as the rate of inflation neared its target of 2%. It decided to hit the pause button heading into 2025 over concerns that Trump's unpredictable tariff policy could reignite inflation. Lower interest rates make borrowing easier, helping to spur more investment and spending, but that could also potentially fuel inflation.

The Fed and Wall Street will get another update on inflation Friday, when the U.S. releases the personal consumption expenditures index. Economists expect it show that inflation remained at about 2.6% in July, compared with a year ago. Businesses have been warning investors and consumers about higher costs and prices because of tariffs.

The Fed has recently become more worried about the state of the employment market, which has shown signs of weakening. Aside from keeping inflation in check, the central bank is tasked with using its tools to help maintain a healthy job market. It will get another big update on the employment market in early September, ahead of its next policy meeting.

Consumer confidence declined modestly in August as anxiety over a weakening job market grew for the eighth straight month. The small decline from The Conference Board's monthly survey was mostly in line with economists' projections.

Crude oil prices fell. European and Asian markets closed lower.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 26.62 points to 6,465.94. The Dow gained 135.60 points to 45,418.07, and the Nasdaq added 94.98 points to 21,544.27.

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