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Wall Street drifts near records as it heads for the finish of a winning week

Wall Street drifts near records as it heads for the finish of a winning week

Nahar Net18-07-2025
by Naharnet Newsdesk 18 July 2025, 17:07
Wall Street is drifting on Friday toward the finish of its third winning week in the last four, as more big U.S. companies deliver stronger profits for the spring than analysts expected.
The S&P 500 was 0.2% higher in early trading after setting its all-time high the day before. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 25 points, or 0.1%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was up 0.4% after coming off its own record.
Norfolk Southern chugged 2.6% higher after an AP source said it's talking with Union Pacific about a merger to create the largest railroad in North America, one that would connect the East and West coasts. Any such deal, though, would likely face tough scrutiny from U.S. regulators. Union Pacific's stock slipped 0.5%.
Netflix, meanwhile, fell 4.7% despite reporting a stronger profit for the latest quarter than Wall Street expected. Analysts said it's not a surprise the stock was sluggish after it had already soared 43% for the year so far, coming into the day. That's six times more than the gain for the S&P 500.
Chevron climbed 1.3% after saying it had completed its acquisition of Hess. The buyout got its go-ahead following a favorable arbitration ruling in Paris about some of Hess' assets off Guyana's coast.
Stronger-than-expected profit reports for the spring also helped several stocks to rally. Charles Schwab climbed 4.4%, and Comerica rose 2.3%.
In the bond market, Treasury yields eased ahead of a report coming Friday morning about how U.S. consumers are feeling about the economy and about inflation.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury sank to 4.42% from 4.47% late Thursday. The two-year Treasury yield, which more closely tracks expectations for what the Federal Reserve will do with its short-term rates, also dropped. It fell to 3.86% from 3.91%.
A top Fed official, Gov. Chris Waller, said late Thursday that the Fed should cut its overnight interest rate as soon as its next meeting in a couple weeks. That follows sharp criticism from President Donald Trump, who has been castigating the Fed for holding interest rates steady this year instead of cutting them, as it did late last year.
Lower rates could give the economy a boost, and Trump has also implied they could help the U.S. government save money on its debt payments, though that's uncertain. The interest rates Washington has to pay on its longer-term debt can depend more on what bond investors think than on what the Fed does, and they can even move in opposite directions.
The chair of the Fed, meanwhile, has been insisting that he wants to see more data about how Trump's tariffs will affect the economy and inflation before the Fed makes its next move. The downside of lower interest rates is that they can give inflation more fuel, and prices may already be starting to feel the upward effects of tariffs.
Traders on Wall Street still think it's more likely that the Fed will resume cutting interest rates in September, rather than later this month, according to data from CME Group.
In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed across Europe and Asia. Hong Kong's Hang Seng jumped 1.4%, but Tokyo's Nikkei 225 slipped 0.2% ahead of an election for the upper house of parliament on Sunday that could wipe out the ruling coalition's upper house majority.
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Wall Street hovers near records in premarket trading
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Wall Street hovers near records in premarket trading

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Wall Street hovers near records in premarket trading
Wall Street hovers near records in premarket trading

Nahar Net

time10 hours ago

  • Nahar Net

Wall Street hovers near records in premarket trading

by Naharnet Newsdesk 25 July 2025, 15:43 Wall Street was on track to open with gains on Friday, adding to record highs ahead of next week's busy slate of earnings, job market reports and the tariff deadline. Futures for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average both were up 0.1% before the bell. Nasdaq futures were flat. The S&P and Nasdaq both closed at record highs on Thursday and markets are currently on track to finish the week with gains for the fourth time in the past five weeks. Intel shares tumbled more than 7% overnight after the chipmaker announced plans to reduce its "core" workforce by nearly one-quarter and cut other expenses in a bid to revive the fortunes of the struggling chipmaker. Intel, which helped launch Silicon Valley as the U.S. technology hub, has fallen behind rivals like Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices while demand for artificial intelligence chips soars. Deckers Brands was up more than 13% overnight after the shoe company easily beat Wall Street's sales and profit targets. Deckers said first-quarter sales rose 17% from the same quarter last year, to $965 million, on the strength of its Ugg and Hoka brands. Boston Beer Co., the maker of Samuel Adams beer and Truly hard seltzer, climbed 7.8% after its second-quarter profit came in well ahead of analysts' forecasts. Boston Beer saw its net income rise more than 15% over last year, boosting its earnings per share in the period to $5.45. Analysts were expecting profit of $3.86 per share. Stocks have broadly been rallying for weeks on hopes that President Donald Trump will reach trade deals with other countries that will lower his stiff proposed tariffs, along with the risk that they could cause a recession and drive up inflation. The deadline for those negotiations comes next Friday, Aug. 1. Next week brings the peak of earnings season, with more than 100 companies in the benchmark S&P 500 reporting their latest results. The economic data calendar is also full, with three separate reports on the labor market, including the always closely-watched monthly jobs report. Elsewhere, in Europe at midday, Germany's DAX shed 0.8%, while Britain's FTSE 100 slid 0.4%. In Paris, the CAC 40 slipped 0.1%. In Asian trading, Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 0.9% to 41,456.23 after two days of gains following President Donald Trump's announcement of a trade deal that would place a 15% tax on imports from Japan. That's lower than the 25% rate that Trump had earlier said would kick in on Aug. 1. Data released on Friday showed the inflation rate in Japan's capital Tokyo rose 2.9% year-on-year in July, down from 3.1% in June. Japanese government efforts to moderate inflation are working, though underlying Tokyo price pressures remain elevated, ING Economics said in a commentary. It expects the Bank of Japan to hold interest rates steady at its July 30-31 meeting, but said the central bank would likely raise its forecast for inflation. In Chinese markets, Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 1.1% to 25,388.35 and the Shanghai Composite index slid 0.3% to 3,593.66. Next week, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said he will meet with Chinese officials in Stockholm, Sweden, to work toward a trade deal with Beijing ahead of an Aug. 12 deadline. Trump has said a China trip "is not too distant" as trade tensions ease. "One big question for markets is whether the tariff ceasefire is extended. We expect that an agreement will be attainable, but, in the interim, markets will watch closely to see if there are adjustments to current tariff rates in either direction," ING Economics said. In South Korea, the Kospi picked up 0.2% to 3,196.05, while Australia's S&P/ASX 200 shed 0.5% to 8,666.90. Taiwan's Taiex edged less than 0.1% lower, and in India, the Sensex fell 0.9%. On Thursday, the S&P 500 added 0.1% to its all-time high set the day before, closing at 6,363.35. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.7% to 44,693.91, while the Nasdaq composite rose 0.2% to a record 21,057.96. In energy trading, U.S. benchmark crude oil added 27 cents to $66.30 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, also rose 27 cents to $68.63 per barrel. The U.S. dollar rose to 147.65 Japanese yen from 147.00 yen. The euro fell to $1.1723 from $1.1750.

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