Wall St edges up; consumer prices, earnings eyed this week

By Caroline Valetkevitch

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks rose slightly on Monday following last week’s losses, but caution prevailed ahead of Wednesday’s consumer prices report and the start of second-quarter earnings.

Investors are anxious to see if price pressures are continuing to moderate. That could shed light on the interest rate outlook, with many traders expecting the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates by 25 basis points this month.

Investors also will digest comments from a number of Fed officials this week. Fed Bank of Cleveland President Loretta Mester said on Monday that still-strong inflation pressures are pointing the central bank toward more rate increases.

“The market is obviously poised for the opening of earnings season,” but investors are also hyper-focused on consumer prices and the outlook for interest rates, said Quincy Krosby, chief global strategist at LPL Financial (NASDAQ:) in Charlotte, North Carolina.

“Mester did not deviate from her former position that the Fed needs to continue raising rates to quell sticky inflation.”

company earnings are due to unofficially kick off this week with reports from some big U.S. banks. Analysts expect earnings to have fallen 6.4% in the second quarter from the year-ago period, IBES data from Refinitiv showed.

Shares of chipmaker Intel (NASDAQ:) rose 2.6% and Qualcomm (NASDAQ:) rose 1.3% after U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said over the weekend that meetings with senior Chinese officials were “direct” and “productive.”

The rose 167.86 points, or 0.5%, to 33,902.74, the S&P 500 gained 3.89 points, or 0.09%, at 4,402.84 and the added 4.30 points, or 0.03%, at 13,665.01.

Icahn Enterprises rose 21% after the investment firm said Carl Icahn and banks have finalized amended loan agreements that untie the activist investor’s personal loans from the trading price of his firm.

Citigroup (NYSE:) strategists on Monday downgraded U.S. stocks to “neutral,” and said megacap growth is set for a pullback and U.S. recession risks could still bite.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by a 2.27-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 2.27-to-1 ratio favored advancers.

The S&P 500 posted 26 new 52-week highs and four new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 50 new highs and 41 new lows.