NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are drifting Monday ahead of potential flashpoints looming later in the week week that could mean more sharp swings for financial markets.
The S&P 500 was up 0.1% in early trading, coming off a winning week in its whipsaw ride that’s been taking investors on a roller coaster for weeks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 198 points, or 0.5%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.1% lower.
The relatively calm trading offers a respite following historic swings that have come as hopes rise and fall that President Donald Trump may back down on his tariffs, which investors expect would otherwise cause a recession. The S&P 500 has nearly halved its drop that had taken it almost 20% below its record set earlier this year.
This upcoming week will feature earnings reports from some of Wall Street’s most influential companies, including Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms and Microsoft. Their performance carries huge sway on the market because they’ve inflated to become the biggest by far in terms of size.
Outside of Big Tech, executives from Caterpillar, Exxon Mobil and McDonald’s may also offer clues about how they’re seeing economic conditions play out. Several companies across industries have recently been slashing their estimates for upcoming profit or pulling their forecasts completely because of uncertainty about what will happen with Trump’s tariffs.
Domino’s Pizza was flipping between small losses and gains after it reported weaker profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Echoing other CEOs recently, the pizza chain’s Russell Weiner highlighted how companies control what they can, while calling the global economic environment “challenging.”
DoorDash added 0.6% after Deliveroo, the food delivery service based in London, said it received a proposed takeover offer for $3.6 billion. Deliveroo announced the bid after markets closed in Europe on Friday, and it on Monday suspended its stock buyback program due to the offer.
So far, economic reports have mostly seemed to show the U.S. economy is still growing, though at a weaker pace. On Wednesday, economists expect a report to show that U.S. economic growth slowed to a 0.8% annual rate in the first three months of this year, down from a solid 2.4% rate at the end of last year.
But most reports Wall Street has received so far has focused on data from before Trump’s “Liberation Day” on April 2, when he announced tariffs that could affect imports from countries worldwide. That could raise the stakes for upcoming jobs reports, including Friday’s, which will show how many workers employers hired during all of April.
Economists expect it to show a slowdown in hiring down to 125,000 from 228,000 in March.
A fear is that Trump’s on-again-off-again tariffs may be pushing households and businesses to alter their spending and freeze plans for long-term investment because of how quickly conditions can change, seemingly by the hour.
The most jarring economic data recently have come from surveys showing U.S. consumers becoming much more pessimistic about the economy’s future because of tariffs. The Conference Board’s latest reading on consumer confidence will arrive on Tuesday.
In the bond market, Treasury yields were holding relatively steady. They’ve calmed since an unsettling, unusual rise rise in yields earlier this month rattled both Wall Street and the U.S. government. It had suggested investors worldwide may have been losing faith in the U.S. bond market’s reputation as a safe place to park cash.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury slipped to 4.27% from 4.29% late Friday.
In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed across Europe and Asia. The CAC 40 in Paris jumped 1%, but stocks slipped 0.2% in Shanghai.
AP Writers Jiang Junzhe and Matt Ott contributed.
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