Stocks in the United States closed mixed today. Markets watched a speech by US Federal Reserve (Fed) chief Jerome Powell and the Nasdaq and S&P 500 indexes closed at new records thanks to chipmaker Nvidia.
Indexes
The Dow Jones index fell 52.82 points, or 0.13 per cent, to 39,291.97 points. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 4.13 points, or 0.07 percent, to 5,576.98 points. The Nasdaq technology market index rose 25.55 points, or 0.14 percent, to 18,429.29 points.
The Nasdaq posted its sixth consecutive record close. Optimism about the growing interest in artificial intelligence overshadowed uncertainty about the Fed’s path to lower interest rates.
Powell said today that U.S. inflation remains above the central bank’s 2 percent target, but has been slowing in recent months. More good data would strengthen the case for cutting interest rates, he said. However, he insisted that he was not sending any signals about the timing of any future action. Markets now give a more than 70 percent chance that the Fed will cut interest rates by a quarter percentage point in September.
Nvidia
Shares of chipmaker Nvidia rose 1.4 percent. The compfany offset declines in shares of other chip companies, helping the S&P 500 and Nasdaq indexes to rise. Shares of JPMorgan, Wells Fargo and Citi, which will release second-quarter earnings this week to kick off the US earnings season, strengthened. Analysts expect earnings per share of S&P 500 companies to rise 10.1 percent in the second quarter. It rose 8.2 percent in the first quarter, Reuters wrote.
Source: ÄŒTK
