NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stock indexes are tiptoeing around their record levels on Tuesday as an incredibly busy week for Wall Street picks up momentum.
The S&P 500 was up 0.2% in morning trading after setting an all-time high in six straight days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 8 points, or less than 0.1%, as of 10:15 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was adding 0.2% to its own record.
JetBlue Airways climbed 3.7%, and SoFi Technologies jumped 17.1%, but Merck dropped 4.7% following a torrent of profit reports from big U.S. companies. They’re among the hundreds of companies telling investors this week how much they made during the spring, including nearly a third of the stocks in the S&P 500 index.
Treasury yields eased in the bond market as the Federal Reserve gets set to begin a two-day meeting where they will decide what to do with short-term interest rates. Despite angry lobbying from President Donald Trump for lower rates, which would give the economy a boost, the widespread expectation is that the Fed will wait for more data about how Trump’s tariffs are affecting inflation and the economy before making its next move.
The U.S. economy has seemed to hold up OK so far despite the pressures of tariffs, though it does appear to be slowing.
One report on Tuesday said that U.S. employers were advertising fewer job openings at the end of June than a month before, though still a bit more than economists expected. A separate report said confidence rose among U.S. consumers, but a measure of their expectations for the economy in the short term remains below the level that typically signals a recession ahead.
“Consumer confidence has stabilized since May, rebounding from April’s plunge, but remains below last year’s heady levels,” according to Stephanie Guichard, senior economist, global indicators, at The Conference Board.
Chinese stock indexes, meanwhile, were mixed as top trade officials from the world’s two largest economies headed into a second day of talks about tariffs. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng were meeting in Sweden’s capital and working against an Aug. 12 deadline. If they don’t reach a deal or at least an extension on their truce by then, triple-digit tariffs are set to resume.
Later this week, another deadline is looming on Friday for many of Trump’s proposed tariffs on other countries. And if that weren’t enough, several highly anticipated economic reports are also on the way, including the latest monthly update on the job market.
This jam-packed week could prove pivotal in determining whether the U.S. stock market can keep climbing to more records or succumb to criticism that it’s grown too expensive following its quick leap in recent months.
One way companies can tamp down such criticism is to deliver solid growth in profits.
That helped Cadence Design Systems, whose stock came into the day with a gain of 11.1% for the year so far. The computational software company said it’s continuing to benefit from the flood of investment into the artificial-intelligence industry, and it raised its forecast for revenue growth this year. Its stock rose 10.2%.
But investors have also been punishing stocks of companies that have failed to meet expectations so far this reporting season.
UnitedHealth Group dropped 3.7% after reporting a profit for the spring that fell short of analysts’ expectations. It also gave a forecast for profit over all of 2025 that investors found disappointing. The health care giant said it expected to earn at least $16 per share, when analysts were looking for something close to $20, according to FactSet.
Shares of Novo Nordisk that trade in the United States tumbled 20.5% after the Danish company cut its forecast for sales growth this year, in part because of lower expectations for its Wegovy weight-loss drug because of high competition. It also named a new chief executive officer.
In stock markets abroad, Japan’s Nikkei fell 0.8%, but indexes elsewhere rose across much of Asia and Europe.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury eased to 4.37% from 4.42% late Monday.
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AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed.
