The Dow rallied higher on Tuesday as results from Walmart and Home Depot weighed on the Nasdaq and the S&P 500.
Boosting the blue-chip Dow, Walmart Inc rose 5.3% as the world’s largest retailer forecast a smaller drop in full-year profit than previously estimated.
The S&P 500 retail sector gained 0.5% in early trade.
Home Depot Inc added 1.7% as it exceeded quarterly sales estimates after demand from builders and higher prices helped the largest home-improvement chain take a hit from declining store visits.
“Consumers are catching up, even as we continue to have inflation,” said Kim Forrest, chief investment officer at Bokeh Capital Partners in Pittsburgh.
“Gasoline has come down in price and especially for low-income buyers, which takes up a lot of their expense.”
Many high-growth and technology stocks fell as US Treasury yields broke their two-day bearish break.
Apple Inc. and Nvidia Corp. fell 0.4% and 1.1%, respectively, as the 10-year Treasury yield rose to 2.85%.
Wall Street indexes have recovered some of their sharp losses in recent weeks on signs that inflation is peaking, despite rising prices and fears of rising rates pushing the US economy into recession.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq index has jumped nearly 24% from mid-June lows.
According to BofA’s monthly survey of global fund managers in August, investor sentiment is still bearish, but no longer “apocalyptic”.
At 09:41 am, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 26.85 points, or 0.08%, at 33,939.29, the S&P 500 was down 5.77 points, or 0.13%, at 4,291.37 and the Nasdaq Composite was down 55.16 points, or 0.42. %, at 13,072.89.
Better-than-expected earnings from Corporate America have been a bright spot for U.S. equities lately, with 77.6% of S&P 500 companies beating analysts’ estimates on Friday, according to Refinitiv data.
The focus will be on retail earnings and retail sales data this week for more clues on the impact of inflation on consumer behavior.
The number of issues declined to a 1.41-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and 1.84-to-1 on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded five new 52-week highs and 29 new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 24 new highs and 12 new lows.
This story has been published without modification in text from a wire agency feed.
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