Wall Street gains as investors await quarterly reports

Jul 17 (Reuters) – U.S. stocks rose on Monday as investors await the release of quarterly results from heavyweight companies later this week. Rising shares of Apple and Tesla contributed to the rise of the Nasdaq.

By 18:15 Moscow time, the Dow Jones index was up 0.13% to 34,553.76 points, the S&P 500 was up 0.20% to 4,514.38 points, and the Nasdaq was up 0.52% to 14,186.42 points.

Apple shares rose 1.1% after Morgan Stanley raised its price target for the iPhone maker.

Tesla shares rose 1.9% after the company said Sunday it had built its first electric pickup, the Cybertruck, after two years of delays.

Competitor Ford Motor’s shares fell 4.7% after the automaker cut prices on its popular F-150 Lightning electric trucks, with the entry-level variant now priced around 17% less.

The three major US indices ended the week more than 2% higher after US consumer and producer price data confirmed that the economy had entered a phase of disinflation, raising hopes that the Federal Reserve would soon end the monetary tightening cycle.

“The market wants more earnings information to see if the activity of the past few months is warranted,” said Thomas Hayes of Great Hill Capital LLC.

Activision Blizzard jumped 3.1% after Microsoft said it signed a deal to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation after the acquisition.

The original message in English is available under the code:

(Johann M Cherian and Bansari Mayur Kamdar in Bangalore)