Wall Street opens higher ahead of busy earnings week and Fed news

NEW YORK (AP) Wall Street is ticking higher in early trading to kick off a week of updates on where interest rates and earnings are headed for the most influential companies in the stock markets. The S&P 500 rose 0.4% shortly after Monday’s opening bell, finishing its eighth week of the last 10. The Dow was up 94 points, or 0.3%, and the Nasdaq composite was up 0.5%. Three Big Tech companies will report their latest earnings this week: Alphabet, Meta Platforms and Microsoft. The Federal Reserve will hold its last interest rate policy meeting on Wednesday.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

BANGKOK (AP) World equities were mixed Monday as investors cautiously waited for another rate hike from the Federal Reserve.

Benchmarks rose in London, Tokyo and Frankfurt, but fell in Paris and Shanghai. US futures rose higher as oil prices fell.

US futures fell sharply and oil prices also fell.

The Federal Reserve is widely expected to raise its federal funds rate to its highest level since 2001 on Wednesday. Investors are hoping this could be the last hike in the tightening cycle as inflation has cooled since last summer. The federal funds rate started 2022 at near zero.

The German DAX rose 0.1% to 16,188.55. In Paris, the CAC 20 lost 0.2% to 7,418.77. The UK FTSE 100 was flat at 7,663.68.

Futures for the S&P 500 advanced nearly 0.2%, while those for the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.1%. On Friday, the S&P 500 posted gains of less than 0.1% to close out its eighth week of gains in the last 10. The Dow rose 2 points and the Nasdaq fell 0.2%.

During Asian trading Monday, the Hong Kong benchmark fell 2.1% to 18,668.15 as reports suggested Chinese leaders are not planning major stimulus to support slowing growth in the world’s second-largest economy.

The Shanghai Composite index fell 0.1% to 3,164.16.

A meeting this week of the ruling Communist Party’s powerful Politburo later this week had raised hopes for more help for the slowing economy. While reports from Monday said this was unlikely, the country’s economic planning agency issued detailed measures to encourage private investment, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

The National Development and Reform Commission said it would recommend that private investment be channeled into certain industries with high market potential that fit with national strategies and industrial policies. That includes sectors such as transportation, water management, clean energy, new infrastructure, advanced manufacturing and modern facility agriculture, Xinhua said.

The Nikkei 225 index in Tokyo added 1.2% to 32,700.94. In Seoul, the Kospi won 0.7% to 2,628.53 points. The Australian S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.1% to 7,306.40 points.

Bangkok’s SET fell 0.4% and India’s Sensex lost 0.2%.

On Friday, stocks on Wall Street found some stability after falling the day before. The earnings reporting season has gained momentum, with most companies reporting better-than-expected results.

The stock market has been in a crack overall this year, with the benchmark S&P 500 rising 18.1% as the economy has defied forecasts of a recession. It has so far been driven by much higher interest rates designed to reduce inflation, and the hope is that it will survive the Federal Reserve’s rate hike campaign.

This week, three of the Magnificent Seven companies behind the majority of S&P 500 gains this year, Alphabet, Facebook parent company Meta Platforms and Microsoft will report their earnings. Expectations are high after all of them are up more than 35% this year.

The top stocks have grown so big and their movements have become so influential on the market that Nasdaq rebalanced its Nasdaq 100 index before trading was due to begin Monday to lessen the impact of some stocks on the overall index.

The seven stocks, which also include Amazon, Apple and Nvidia, collectively trade with share prices 44 times higher than their earnings per share over the past 12 months, according to Savita Subramanian, equity strategist at Bank of America.

On other trading Monday, US benchmark crude was up 4 cents to $77.03 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It picked up $1.42 to $77.07 a barrel on Friday.

Brent oil, the price base for international trade, fell 1 cent to $81.06 a barrel.

The dollar fell from 141.68 yen to 141.32 Japanese yen. The euro fell from $1.1128 to $1.1085.

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