By Lisa Pauline Mattackal
(Reuters) – Wall Street opened higher on Monday as the main U.S. stock indexes looked set to recoup some losses following a turbulent trading week, ahead of earnings from a host of megacap companies and the final stretch of the Nov. 5 presidential election.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 298.63 points, or 0.71%, to 42,413.03, the S&P 500 gained 27.49 points, or 0.47%, to 5,835.61, and the Nasdaq Composite gained 107.00 points, or 0.58%, to 18,625.61.
The main focus was on events in the week ahead, most notably corporate results, with around 169 S&P 500 companies scheduled to report through the week.
That includes the bulk of the “Magnificent Seven” group of megacap technology giants that have been Wall Street’s biggest drivers this year, as equities rallied to all-time highs.
Alphabet rose 1%, Meta Platforms was up 0.8% and Microsoft was 0.3% higher, ahead of their results later in the week.
Apple and Amazon.com also report this week. The five companies jointly make up about 23% of the S&P 500’s weightage, and investor reaction to their results will be a key determining factor in whether indexes continue to climb or retreat.
Investors were likely to focus primarily on companies’ capital expenditure in response to AI demand, said Jay Woods, chief global strategist at Freedom Capital Markets.
“Will this be perceived as money well spent or will the stocks get punished?”.
Israel’s response to an Iranian missile attack earlier this month focused, so far, on missile factories and other sites near Tehran, rather than on refineries or nuclear targets, assuaging some worries about the situation in the region.
“The market is worried about a real escalation in the war in the Middle East, and that doesn’t seem to (be) that likely, based on the recent attack” said Jan von Gerich, chief analyst at Nordea.
The energy sector fell 1.5% as crude prices plunged 5%. The small-cap Russell 2000 jumped 1.5%.
The S&P 500 and the Dow Jones ended a six-week winning streak on Friday as investors repriced expectations for Federal Reserve interest rate cuts.
Economic data due this week will be crucial for that assessment, most notably the Personal Consumption Expenditure index and the closely watched nonfarm payrolls report.
Investors all but expect a 25-basis point rate reduction at the U.S. central bank’s next meeting, according to CME’s FedWatch.
Focus was also on the U.S. presidential election, with markets more broadly pricing in a second Donald Trump administration.
Boeing’s shares dipped 1.8% after the planemaker launched a stock offering that could raise up to $19 billion in a bid to shore up its finances amid an ongoing worker strike.
Industrial conglomerate 3M jumped 3.5%, giving a boost to the Dow, after JP Morgan hiked its price target on the company’s shares.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners for a 3.64-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and a 3.14-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P 500 posted nine new 52-week highs and two new lows, while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 43 new highs and 16 new lows.
(Reporting by Lisa Mattackal and Pranav Kashyap in Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai and Shounak Dasgupta)
