Currency traders watch monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, right, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Feb. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Currency traders watch monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, right, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Feb. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street fluttered to a record after U.S. stock indexes drifted through a mixed day of trading. The S&P 500 edged up by 0.2% Tuesday to finish just above its all-time closing high set last month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was close to flat, while the Nasdaq composite rose 0.1%. Entergy jumped to help lead the market after the electric company reported stronger profit than analysts expected. It joined a lengthening list of U.S. companies that have topped profit expectations for the end of 2024. That helped offset the first drop for Meta Platforms’ stock in 21 days. Treasury yields rose in the bond market.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is as U.S. stock indexes drift in mixed trading on Tuesday.
The S&P 500 was virtually unchanged in late trading and sitting just below its set last month, after dancing around the milestone through the day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 95 points, or 0.2%, with half an hour remaining in trading, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.1% higher.
Entergy rallied 6.4% and helped lead the market. The electric company, which serves customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, reported stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected.
That helped offset a 5.3% drop for Conagra Brands, which lowered its forecasts for upcoming profit and other financial measures. The food company said supply issues have hurt two of its product lines: frozen meals containing chicken and frozen vegetables.
U.S. stocks have broadly climbed back toward record heights even after big recent disruptions seemed set to derail their long, upward trend that began in 2022.
Hanging over everything has been following announcements of . But Wall Street has been taking such actions increasingly in stride, believing they are merely tools for negotiations and that they’ll for and the economy than they may seem initially.
Then there’s , the Chinese artificial-intelligence startup that said it was able to match the performance of big U.S. rivals without having to use top-of-the-line chips. about a pullback in AI investment, which has been a for the market's in recent years.
But big U.S. companies have since said in recent weeks they still plan to invest billions of dollars in AI, even with DeepSeek’s disruption.
Such optimism has global fund managers feeling so confident that they're piling into stocks and holding only 3.5% of their portfolios in the safety of cash, according to a survey by Bank of America. That's the lowest since 2010, strategist Michael Hartnett said in a BofA Global Research report.
Helping to support the fervor has been strong profit reports from Entergy and other big U.S. businesses. Companies in the S&P 500 are on track to deliver nearly 17% growth in their earnings per share for the final three months of 2024 compared to a year earlier. That would be the best growth since 2021, according to FactSet.
Still, threats continue to hang over the stock market. Last week, showed across the United States last month. Such stubborn inflation may force a halt to the to interest rates, which in order to take pressure off the economy and help the job market.
Traders have been paring their expectations for possible cuts to rates through 2025, with a notable number saying they foresee zero. That in turn has pushed up , which typically drag downward on prices for stocks and other investments.
Treasury yields rose again Tuesday, with the yield on the 10-year Treasury rising to 4.55% from 4.48% late Friday. Like the U.S. stock market, bond trading was closed Monday in observance of the Presidents Day holiday.
With Treasury yields no longer helping stock prices, Morgan Stanley strategist Michael Wilson suggests winning stocks and industries could separate themselves even if the overall market looks restrained. He points to areas of the market seeing stronger momentum for earnings, such as financial companies.
In stock markets abroad, indexes were modestly higher across much of Europe and Asia.
Stocks in Hong Kong jumped 1.6% for one of the world's bigger gains after Chinese President Xi Jinping Monday, including Alibaba founder Jack Ma, in a signal of assurance following a crackdown on the technology industry in recent years
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AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Zen Soo contributed.
