Stocks nudged higher Monday ahead of a week with several data reports that could dictate by how much or even whether the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates at its next meeting in a week.
- The S&P 500 rose 13.65 points, or 0.2%, to 6,495.15 and finished just below its record set last week.
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 114.09 points, or 0.3%, to 45,514.95.
- The Nasdaq composite rose 98.31 points, or 0.5%, to 21,798.70, an all-time high.
AppLovin and Robinhood Markets helped lead the market after learning they are among three companies that will join the S&P 500 index later this month, the
AP reports.
AppLovin climbed 11.6% and Robinhood jumped 15.8%, while Emcor slipped 0.6%. They will replace three companies that have shrunk enough in size to get demoted to S&P's index of small stocks, the SmallCap 600. Those stocks, MarketAxess Holdings, Caesars Entertainment, and Enphase Energy, ranged from a 3.5% loss to a 0.3% gain. EchoStar jumped 19.9% after saying it agreed to sell spectrum licenses to Elon Musk's SpaceX for $17 billion in cash and stock. SpaceX also agreed to pay for roughly $2 billion of interest payments on EchoStar debt through November 2027. The deal will help SpaceX's Starlink business develop direct-to-cell service, and it knocked down stocks of other telecoms. Verizon and AT&T both dropped 2.4%.
Trading across most of the market was relatively quiet ahead of several updates coming later this week on the economy and inflation. They could alter expectations among traders, who at the moment are unanimously forecasting the Fed will cut its main interest rate for the first time this year at its meeting two Wednesdays from now. On Tuesday, the US government will release preliminary revisions for job growth numbers it reported through March, and it could show that hiring was weaker than earlier thought.
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Reports on inflation will follow on Wednesday and Thursday, showing how much prices rose last month at the wholesale and at the consumer levels. Bigger rises there than expected could tie the Fed's hands. Officials would need to decide which problem is more pressing, either the job market or inflation, because they have only one tool to fix either. And raising or lowering interest rates to help one tends to hurt the other in the short term. US companies have been trying several ways to preserve their profits in the face of tariffs, which push up prices for things imported to the country.
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