Wall Street pushed higher Monday as markets absorb more corporate earnings and potential ramifications following a shooting at a weekend rally for former President Donald Trump
Futures for the S&P 500 rose 0.5% before the bell and futures for Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.6%.
Shares in Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. jumped sharply in premarket trading Monday, gaining as much as 70%. They were up more than 49% at $46.15 a share on the Nasdaq as of 9 a.m. local time in New York.
The shooting at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania is being investigated as an attempted assassination of the former president, who is seeking a second term in the nation’s highest office. The Republican National Convention opens Monday in Milwaukee.
BlackRock edged less than 1% higher after the asset management company beat Wall Street profit targets. Investment bank Goldman Sachs rose just a fraction of a percent after it also beat analyst profit expectations.
Burberry shares skidded more than 15% Monday after the British luxury fashion house said it has appointed Joshua Schulman, formerly head of Michael Kors and Coach, as its new chief executive officer. Schulman, 52, replaces Jonathan Akeroyd.
The unexpected announcement came as Burberry said its first-quarter revenue was down 21% and it suspended its dividend.
At the Economic Club of Washington on Monday, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will make his first public comments since last week’s inflation data showed that consumer prices eased for the second straight month in June. Powell is expected to address questions about the U.S. and global economies and the data the central bank has been tracking in its effort to tame inflation.
Investors and economists will be parsing Powell’s words for hints of when the Fed might start cutting rates. Most experts believe a September cut is more likely than one at the Fed’s next meeting later this month.
Friday’s update on U.S. inflation said prices rose more at the wholesale level last month than economists expected, which was a letdown after data a day earlier said inflation at the consumer level was better than expected.
It’s the second straight month such expectations have eased, helping to calm worries about a potential spiral where expectations for high inflation could drive U.S. consumers toward behavior that would push inflation even higher. That in turn could give the Federal Reserve more of the evidence of slowing inflation that it says it needs to begin cutting its main interest rate, which is at its highest level in more than two decades.
Investors were also watching the four-day meeting in Beijing for measures to help revive the slumping property market and address huge local government debts.
China reported that its economy expanded at a slower-than-forecast 4.7% annual pace in the last quarter as its ruling Communist Party opened a once-a-decade policy-setting meeting.
Annual economic growth fell from 5.3% in the first quarter but the 5% pace of growth in the first half of the year was in line with the government’s forecast for about 5% growth for 2024. In quarterly terms, the economy expanded 0.7%, down from 1.5% in the first quarter.
“The set of economic data releases from China this morning has not been promising ahead of their upcoming Big Plenum, with the data once again pointing to a mixed bag for the world’s second largest economy,” Yeap Jun Rong of IG said in a commentary.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 1.5% early Monday to 18,021.73 on heavy selling of property developers. The Shanghai Composite slipped less than 0.1% to 2,970.77.
The central bank left its medium-term lending rate unchanged, as expected, at 2.5%. It’s the rate for Chinese banks to borrow from the People’s Bank of China for 6 months to one year and indirectly affects other benchmark rates that affect interest rates on mortgages and other loans.
Markets in Tokyo were closed for a public holiday.
In Seoul, the Kospi edged 0.1% higher to 2,860.92, while the S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.7% to 8,017.60. Taiwan’s Taiex lost 0.2% and the SET in Bangkok shed 0.4%.
In Europe at midday, Germany’s DAX and London’s FTSE each turned 0.5% lower while the CAC 40 in Paris declined 0.7%.
In other dealings early Monday, U.S. benchmark crude oil lost 7 cents to $82.14 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Brent crude, the international standard, also lost 7 cents to $84.96 per barrel.
The U.S. dollar fell to 158.08 Japanese yen from 158.16 yen late Friday. The euro rose to $1.0905 from $1.0894.
Friday on Wall Street, U.S. stocks rose after mixed signals on big banks’ profits and inflation did little to dent Wall Street’s belief that easier interest rates are on the way.
The S&P 500 climbed 0.6% to close its fifth winning week in the last six. The Dow rose 0.6% and the Nasdaq composite added 0.6%. The Russell 2000 rallied 1.1%, nearly double the S&P 500’s gain, and closed out its best week in eight months.