U.S. stocks opened higher on Monday, recovering from the worst week of the year, with the S&P 500 on the upswing as investors braced for a flood of corporate profits.
The S&P 500 (^GSPC) rose 0.5% to above 5,000 after closing below the benchmark for the first time since February on Friday amid six consecutive days of declines. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) also rose 0.5%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index (^IXIC) rose 0.6%.
After the recent selloff, the market's bull run has sunk to its weakest point in months, and this week will be crucial in determining whether that slump continues.
Tech stocks are looking to recover after Netflix's (NFLX) lackluster earnings dragged down a broader market already facing geopolitical tensions. As the chances of a rate cut fade, there is growing skepticism that megacaps can continue to play a role in driving profits.
Expectations are now resting on the big tech companies' earnings reports later this week, reassuring and reinvigorating the market. The deck features quarterly reports from Meta (META), Microsoft (MSFT), and Alphabet (GOOG). Verizon (VZ) was the highlight Monday as the market braced for a slew of reports, with 178 S&P 500 companies alone scheduled to release reports in the coming days.
But the focus on Monday was on Tesla (TSLA) on the eve of its earnings report, when the EV maker announced it had cut prices in the U.S., China and several other countries. Elon Musk's company has already spooked some investors with its push for robot taxis and its decision to force shareholders to vote again on a pay package that Musk rejected. The stock price fell more than 3% on Monday.
Meanwhile, debate over the Fed's stance on rate cuts continued to rage after Chairman Jerome Powell and other policymakers became more hawkish in the face of persistent inflation last week. Given this situation, people are already turning their attention to Friday's release of the PCE index, the Fed's preferred inflation measure, as important in assessing whether interest rates will remain high for a longer period of time. .
live2 updates
