US stocks hold steady at record levels in quiet day on Wall Street
NEW YORK, United States (AP) — US stocks drifted further into record heights in a listless day of trading yesterday as Wall Street waits for the heavyweight economic data coming at the end of the week.
The S&P 500 inched up by 1.19 points, or less than 0.1 per cent, to 4,291.80 and added to its all-time high set a day earlier. More stocks fell than rose within the index, but gains for tech companies made up for weaknesses in banks and utilities.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged higher by 9.02 points, or less than 0.1 per cent, to 34,292.29. The Nasdaq composite added 27.83, or 0.2 per cent, to its record high from a day before and finished at 14,528.33.
Stocks have set their recent records on optimism that the economy is strengthening and that the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates low for a while longer.
A report released Tuesday morning showed a measure of confidence among US consumers is continuing to rise, beating economists’ expectations for a slight decline. That’s key for an economy made up mostly of spending by consumers.
A separate report showed that home prices across the country rose again in April, continuing their blistering pace.
With one day left in June, the market is getting ready to close out a strong first half of the year. The S&P 500 is on track for a gain of 14.3 per cent, more than double its average for a full year, going back to the start of the millennium.
Technology stocks did much heavy lifting yesterday for the broader market. Apple rose 1.2 per cent and Microsoft gained 1 per cent.
Major banks announced plans to return billions of dollars to their shareholders through dividend increases and stock buybacks after passing the Federal Reserve’s most recent “stress tests”.
Morgan Stanley rose 3.4 per cent after announcing a doubling of its dividend and plans to buy back $12 billion of its own stock. Other bank stocks were mixed following their own announcements. Goldman Sachs rose 1.1 per cent, but Bank of America fell 1.6 per cent. As a group, financial stocks in the S&P 500 fell.
The big piece of economic data this week will be Friday’s jobs report for June. Economists expect it to show US employers created 675,000 more jobs than they cut, with the unemployment rate falling to 5.7 per cent.
