Stocks were mixed to slightly lower in early trading today, as traders reassessed their investments after the market’s big gains the prior week. Investors will be turning their attention to additional economic data, including Friday’s jobs report.
The S&P 500 was up less than 0.1% as of 9:30 a.m. Central. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.3%, dragged lower by Boeing and Chevon. The Nasdaq Composite was up 0.7%, lifted by big technology companies like Microsoft and Apple.
The last two weeks have been a bit of a seesaw for investors, as Wall Street tries to navigate the potential threat of inflation along with the strong U.S. economic recovery that’s coming as the pandemic wanes. Two weeks ago, markets fell sharply after Federal Reserve officials signaled to investors that they planned to raise interest rates as soon as 2023, much earlier than the market has anticipated.
Last week investors got data that showed inflation being relatively under control. Investors were also encouraged by progress in Washington on an infrastructure spending plan, which helped the market recover most of the previous week’s losses.
Bond yields were lower. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note fell to 1.48% from 1.53% on Friday.
The big economic data point this week will be Friday’s jobs report. Economists are expecting that U.S. employers created 685,000 jobs in June, an improvement from the 559,000 jobs that were created in May. The unemployment rate is expected to fall to 5.6%.