Investors Tuesday night cheered another day of mostly rosy earnings and appeared disinterested in the Federal Reserve’s Wednesday meeting with futures for USA stock markets clearly higher as Asian markets opened mixed.
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The FOMC has little room to raise rates this time, but a recent set of strong economic data can strengthen the case for an increase earlier than the market anticipates.
The Dow Jones industrial average dipped 0.1 percent to end at 18,473.75 points and the S&P 500 edged up 0.03 percent to 2,169.18 after spending much of the day at a loss.
“The bias over the near term is for the market to continue to move higher”, said Eric Wiegand, senior portfolio manager at US Bank’s Private Client Reserve.
WELLINGTON – The S&P/NZX 50 Index fell 6.92 points, or 0.1 per cent, to 7310.390. The stock provided the biggest boost to the S&P 500.
Shares fell nearly across the board, with energy stocks leading declines across 10 S&P 500 sectors and the consumer discretionary sector the lone gainer, helped by a 1.84% gain in Target (TGT.N).
The Nasdaq is up 147.57 points, or 3 percent.
In extended trade, Alphabet jumped 4 percent after the Google parent-company reported stronger-than-expected revenue.
United Technologies was also on the front foot by 3.13% after it reported a decline in second-quarter profit but lifted its guidance for the year. The company recorded quarterly earnings of $1.09 versus estimates of 96 cents per share.
The September crude contract was down 81 cents at US$42.11 per barrel and August natural gas was up 1.8 cents at US$2.74 per mmBTU.
Texas Instruments shares rose 6.6% after its current quarter forecast beat analysts’ estimates.
In economic data, U.S. new home sales surged to a more than eight-year high in July, a sign residential real estate continued to benefit from plentiful jobs and historically low mortgage rates.
“The market has been going steadily higher and so analysts expect it to go down”, said Sal Recco, chief operating officer at Gravity Partners.
Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 1.58-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.62-to-1 ratio favoured advancers.
About 6.5 billion shares changed hands in US exchanges, below the almost 6.8 billion daily average over the past 20 sessions. Boeing Co (NYS: BA) and Intel Corp (NASDAQ: INTC) each advanced at least 1.2%.
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“Japanese news this week [is] guiding rates markets in the USA”, said Aaron Kohli, interest-rate strategist at BMO Capital Markets, in a note.
