Wall Street ends with modest gains as investors await earnings, economic data
WALL Street stocks closed marginally up on Monday as investors sidestepped any meaningful moves following U.S. President Donald Trump's latest tariff threats, and held steady ahead of a busy week of economic data and the start of earnings season.
Trump ramped up trade tensions over the weekend, vowing to slap a 30% tariff on most imports from the European Union and Mexico starting August 1 - leaving the clock ticking for last-minute trade deals.
The EU extended its pause on retaliatory measures until early August, holding out hope for a negotiated truce. The White House said talks with the EU, Canada and Mexico are still underway.
Despite the headlines, investor reaction was muted, having grown numb to Trump's barrage of tariff threats and his frequent last-minute U-turns.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 88.14 points, or 0.20%, to 44,459.65, the S&P 500 gained 8.81 points, or 0.14%, at 6,268.56 and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 54.80 points, or 0.27%, to 20,640.33.
Trading volume was also subdued, with 15.43 billion shares changing hands, compared with the 17.62 billion average for the last 20 trading days.
Markets have been buoyant in recent weeks even as Trump has rattled his tariff saber.
The Nasdaq Composite ended at a record high, its seventh such achievement since June 27. The S&P 500, which finished a dozen points below last Thursday's best ever close, has had five records in the same timeframe.
"If anything is holding the market back, it's the fact we've had a pretty good run since April," said Jason Pride, chief of investment strategy & research at Glenmede.
He noted that despite initial fears that Trump's tariff policy would hurt the U.S. economy, the levies unveiled so far and the passage of his signature economic legislation last week will broadly offset each other, meaning investors are starting to be more confident about the economy's growth prospects.
Signs of how Trump's policies are playing out will come this week, with a raft of new reports on the state of the U.S. economy due up.
Second-quarter earnings season kicks off on Tuesday, when several Wall Street banking heavyweights are set to report.
Tuesday is also the scheduled release of the latest consumer price data, which is expected to reveal an inflation uptick in June as sellers started passing on the cost of sweeping tariffs.
Wednesday's producer and import price reports will offer fresh insight into how supply chain pressures are shaping up.
One place where Trump's tariff rhetoric still moved markets was crude prices, with U.S. benchmark oil dropping 2.2% after he threatened levies on buyers of Russian exports, which may have knock-on effects on global energy supplies.
This pushed the energy index down 1.2%, the biggest decliner among the 11 S&P sectors.
A majority of the sectors closed in positive territory though, led by the 0.7% advance by communication services . It was helped by gains in Netflix, which reports earnings on Thursday, and Warner Bros. Discovery , whose latest Superman caper had a strong opening weekend at the box office.
Crypto stocks ticked up after Bitcoin topped $120,000 for the first time. Coinbase rose 1.8%, and MicroStrategy gained 3.8%.
Waters Corp dropped 13.8% after the lab equipment maker agreed to merge with rival Becton, Dickinson and Company's Biosciences & Diagnostic Solutions unit in a $17.5 billion deal. - Reuters
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Malay Mail
23 minutes ago
- Malay Mail
Betting on TACO: How stock markets learned to ignore Trump's bluster amid latest tariff threats
PARIS, July 15 — When it comes to Donald Trump's repeated tariff threats and financial markets, it looks like 'TACO' is the dish investors are dining on, analysts said. The acronym — coined by a Financial Times columnist and standing for 'Trump Always Chickens Out' — has become a lodestar for equities, currencies and commodities traders, resulting in diminishing reactions to the US president's warnings. To be sure, Trump's vows of future tariff hikes still weigh on markets — just not to the extent they used to. When his 'Liberation Day' protectionist offensive was unveiled in April, the reaction was panic. Now, said analysts, traders take his tariff announcements in their stride. On Monday, stock markets largely shrugged off Trump's weekend threat to impose 30-percent tariffs on the EU. 'It's amazing in fact, the tariff rates are as high as they were announced back in April, yet the market reaction is completely different,' Ipek Ozkardeskaya, an analyst at Swissquote Bank, told AFP. 'Investors continue to bet that Trump 'will chicken out' — the so-called TACO trade — and that negotiations will extend beyond August 1st,' when the tariffs are to come into effect, she said. Despite Trump trying to raise the stakes with several tariff announcements over recent days, targeting a dozen countries and products such as copper, 'the market has increasingly overcome its queasiness', said Jim Reid, a Deutsche Bank analyst. US stock indices are hitting record highs, while European equities are also proving attractive to buyers. Germany's DAX index has risen more than 20 percent since the beginning of this year, despite the export-dependent country being among the more exposed to Trump's levies. A member of civic groups wearing a mask of US President Donald Trump performs during a protest against Trump's tariff policy near the US embassy in Seoul on July 15, 2025. — AFP pic Inured to Trump's behaviour That resilience speaks to traders becoming inured to Trump's pattern of behaviour that goes from headline threats, to delays, and then in some cases to negotiated outline deals. 'Markets aren't collapsing because they've grown conditioned to tariff threats as part of the US negotiating playbook. Investors see this more as tactical leverage than an immediate economic cliff,' Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management, said. When it comes to the latest threat, 'the real tell is that the EU hasn't responded with reciprocal tariffs, which suggests Brussels still thinks a negotiated outcome is possible — and that's keeping risk sentiment afloat,' he said. 'The markets expect the (EU-US) negotiations to continue,' agreed Alexandre Baradez, head of market analysis at IG France. But there is a lingering worry that Trump this time might make good on his threat. 'If huge tariffs do get imposed on August 1st, in thin holiday markets, we could get a sizeable market reaction,' said Deutsche Bank's Reid. In America, the effects of the tariffs Trump has already implemented are also being watched closely, especially for signs of spiking inflation. That, combined with lower growth, could usher in a period of stagflation, which could prevent the US central bank, the Federal Reserve, using lower interest rates to revive the economy. 'The market's reaction — or the lack thereof — increases the gap between how investors want to see the reality, and what the reality will look like,' warned Swissquote Bank's Ozkardeskaya. — AFP
New Straits Times
26 minutes ago
- New Straits Times
Apple invests US$500mil in rare earths producer MP Materials
NEW YORK: Apple said on Tuesday it would invest US$500 million into rare earths mine operator MP Materials, as the iPhone maker seeks to localise its mineral supply chain. The investment is part of a broader push to bring the production of its coveted iPhones to the US and boost US manufacturing amid a push from the Trump administration to cut reliance on China. Rare earths are a group of 17 metals used to make magnets that turn power into motion. China halted rare earths exports in March following a trade spat with US President Donald Trump that showed some signs of easing late last month, even as broader tensions underscored demand for non-Chinese supply. Shares of Las Vegas-based MP Materials jumped 10 per cent to US$52.37 in premarket trading. MP last week agreed to a multibillion-dollar deal with the US Department of Defense to boost output of rare earth magnets and help loosen China's market control. Apple said the MP investment is part of its US$500 billion commitment to the US. The agreement includes plans for Apple to purchase US-made rare earth magnets from MP Materials' Texas facility. It would be the first supply deal for MP's magnets since the financial backstop agreement with Washington. MP already produces mined and processed rare earths and has said it expects to start commercial magnet production in its Texas facility by the end of this year. The two companies would build another factory in Texas to produce magnets and a new recycling facility in Mountain Pass, California, near the company's existing mine. Last week's deal with the US government includes a price floor for rare earths, designed to spur investment in domestic mines and processing plants, which has been lagging partly due to low prices set in China.
Free Malaysia Today
35 minutes ago
- Free Malaysia Today
Senior official says Russia doesn't care about Trump's ‘theatrical ultimatum'
US President Donald Trump told the BBC that he thinks a Ukraine peace deal is on the cards. (AP pic) MOSCOW : Russia does not care about US President Donald Trump's 'theatrical ultimatum' about slapping sanctions on buyers of Russian exports unless Moscow agrees to a peace deal in Ukraine, a senior security official said today. Trump, sitting beside Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte in the Oval Office, yesterday, announced new weapons for Ukraine and threatened secondary tariffs of 100% on the buyers of Russian exports, of which crude makes up a major chunk. The US president also expressed frustration with Vladimir Putin, saying he did not want to call the Russian leader 'an assassin, but he's a tough guy'. 'Trump issued a theatrical ultimatum to the Kremlin,' former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said in a post in English on X. 'The world shuddered, expecting the consequences. Belligerent Europe was disappointed. Russia didn't care.' The Kremlin has so far not commented on Trump's remarks but said yesterday it was clear that the US had continued to supply weapons and ammunition to Ukraine. In Washington, a White House official said Trump's intention is to impose '100% tariffs on Russia' and secondary sanctions on other countries that buy oil from Russia if a peace deal is not struck in 50 days. Eighty-five of the 100 US senators are co-sponsoring a bill that would give Trump the authority to impose 500% tariffs on any country that helps Russia, but the chamber's Republican leaders have been waiting for Trump to give them the go-ahead for a vote. China and India are the biggest buyers of Russian crude. Trump told the BBC that he was 'not done' with Putin and that he thought a Ukraine peace deal was on the cards.
