Stock Market Today: Wall Street Rises Ahead of Bank Earnings, Powell's Testimony This Week

NEW YORK (AFP) – Stocks were mixed in afternoon trading on Wall Street on Monday, hovering around record highs hit last week.

The S&P 500 was mostly unchanged. The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.3%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average gave up early gains and fell 49 points, or 0.3%, as of 12:03 p.m. ET.

Specialty glassware maker Corning Inc. rose 10.7%, one of the biggest gains in the market, after raising its sales forecast.

Shares of troubled planemaker Boeing rose 1 percent after it agreed to plead guilty to a criminal fraud charge stemming from two 737 Max crashes that killed 346 people. Government identifies company violated an agreement Which protected her from prosecution for more than three years.

Entertainment giant Paramount Global Its shares fell 2.8% after it agreed to merge with Skydance.

Traders are looking forward to several earnings reports this week including updates from Delta Air Lines on Thursday.

JPMorgan, Citigroup and Wells Fargo are scheduled to report results on Friday. The latest updates from the banks could give Wall Street a clearer picture of how consumers are coping with mounting debt and whether banks are worried about payments and potential delinquencies.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell will address Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday. The central bank has kept its benchmark interest rate at its highest level in more than two decades in an effort to curb inflation.

The Fed’s goal is to bring inflation down to 2% without slowing economic growth too much. Inflation is still weighing on consumers, but it’s down significantly from its peak two years ago. Economic growth has slowed this year, but remains relatively strong amid a strong jobs market and consumer spending.

The central bank will get more updates on consumer inflation on Thursday. Wall Street expects the latest government report to show inflation falling to 3.1% in June from 3.3% in May.

The wholesale inflation report, before costs are passed on to consumers, is expected on Friday.

Inflation appears to be stuck at around 3% by most measures. That has led to more caution from the Federal Reserve and a dimming of expectations for the number of interest rate cuts expected this year. Most experts expect the Fed to cut rates once this year, but not before September. The Fed holds its next policy meeting later this month.

Treasury yields were relatively steady in the bond market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 4.29% from 4.28% late Friday.

European stocks were mixed afterwards. France elections It left its legislature divided between left, center and far right, with no political faction coming close to a majority.

Stocks fell in Asia.