Wall Street Rise Ahead of Technical Reports, Fed Decision

(Reuters) – Wall Street’s major indexes rose on Monday as investors mentally prepare for quarterly reports from tech and growth companies, as well as a Fed decision later this week.

By 17:27 Moscow time, the Dow Jones index was up 0.41% to 35,371.83 points, the S&P 500 index was up 0.35% to 4,552.36 points and the Nasdaq index was up 0.22% to 14,063.05 points.

The focus is on Meta Platforms, Microsoft and Alphabet due to be released this week. Retailers expect an end to the nearly year-long decline in the cloud business, as well as an increase in digital advertising sales.

The main event of the week will also be the Fed meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday, where rate hikes of 25 basis points are expected.

Most economists polled by Reuters expect the hike to be the last in the current tightening cycle.

“There is a real concern that either the Fed will be too hawkish or earnings and forecasts will be weaker than expected,” said Thomas Hayes of Great Hill Capital LLC.

“That said, I expect the outlook (for upside stocks) to be better than expected as the demand for generative AI is literally limitless.”

Chevron shares rose 1.7% after the oil giant released an encouraging preliminary quarterly report over the weekend.

Tesla shares rose 0.6% after UBS downgraded them.

Toymaker Mattel’s shares rose 1.5% as Barbie set a record for 2023 U.S. debuts. Film distributor Warner Bros lost 1.6 percent.

AMC Entertainment shares rose 16.2% after a court blocked a plan to swap theater chain shares that posed the risk of diluting the company. AMC preferred shares fell 1.1%.

Stock exchange operator Nasdaq has reduced the weighting of several companies in its stock index, which account for nearly half of the Nasdaq 100, to eliminate excessive “concentration”.

The original message in English is available at the code: (Bansari Mayur Kamdar and Johann M Cherian in Bangalore)