Stock market today: Wall Street edges further into record highs

AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks edged further into record heights on Wall Street after shaking off a bumpy start to the day. The S&P 500 rose 0.3% Tuesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up 0.2%, adding to its own record. The Nasdaq composite gained 0.6%. Treasury yields sank in the bond market following an update on U.S. consumer confidence that was surprisingly weak. Prices for oil, copper and other commodities rallied following a slew of moves by China’s central bank to prop up the world’s second-largest economy. Chinese stocks closed sharply higher.

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

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are drifting around their records Tuesday after Chinese stocks soared following a slew of moves by the Chinese central bank to prop up the world’s second-largest economy.

The S&P 500 was 0.1% higher in late trading and on track to set an all-time high for the 41st time this year. The movements were tentative, and the index wavered up and down following a surprisingly weak report released in the morning on confidence among U.S. consumers.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was edging down by 6 points, or less than 0.1%, from its own record set the day before. The Nasdaq composite was 0.4% higher, with an hour remaining in trading.

Financial markets have been mostly ebullient after the Federal Reserve made a drastic turn last week in how it sets interest rates. It’s now lowering rates to make things easier for the U.S. economy after keeping them high for years in hopes of extinguishing high inflation.

One of the risks still hanging over the market is the struggling Chinese economy and how much its flagging growth may affect the rest of the world. After earlier delivering some modest and piecemeal moves, the chief of China’s central bank on Tuesday announced a broad set of changes to bolster its economy, including a reduction in the amount of reserves banks are required to keep.

Analysts called the coordinated moves encouraging, and they helped stocks soar in China. Indexes jumped 4.2% in Shanghai and 4.1% in Hong Kong. But questions still remain about how much they will boost the economy, which has been struggling since Chinese authorities cracked down on excessive borrowing by property developers.

Prices climbed for crude oil and other commodities that a healthy Chinese economy would devour. Copper was up nearly 4%.

Another risk hanging over Wall Street is the slowing U.S. job market. Now that inflation has eased substantially from its peak two summers ago, the main worry occupying investors is that a slowdown in hiring by U.S. companies may worsen.

Moves to interest rates can take a notoriously long time to make their way fully through the economy, and the Federal Reserve kept its main interest rate at a two-decade high for more than a year before last week. It did cut by an unusually large amount in hopes of providing relief to the job market and economy.

A report released Tuesday showed U.S. households are feeling more worried about the job market. Their overall confidence level sank in September, according to the Conference Board, instead of rising like economists expected. That’s a big deal because spending by U.S. consumers is the heart of the U.S. economy.

AutoZone’s stock fell 0.9% after the seller of auto replacement parts and accessories said a key measure of its sales performance among its U.S. stores barely grew during the latest quarter. It was part of an underwhelming report where its profit and revenue both fell short of analysts’ expectations.

AutoZone said it’s continuing to see customers at its U.S. stores delay purchases of non-essentials.

Another company that depends on the appetite of U.S. shoppers for non-essentials, Thor Industries, rose 6.9% following a mixed profit report. The maker of recreational vehicles reported better profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected, but it also gave a forecast for its upcoming fiscal year that sees the RV market continuing to be challenged.

“The talk of a softer market is beginning to sound like a broken record, but we remained focused on managing through it with increasing efficiency,” CEO Bob Martin said.

One of Wall Street’s bigger winners was Smartsheet, which helps companies manage projects and automate workflows. It rose 6.4% after Blackstone and Vista Equity Partners agreed to buy it in an all-cash deal valued at $8.4 billion.

In the bond market, Treasury yields slipped after the weaker-than-expected report on consumer confidence erased earlier gains. The 10-year yield fell to 3.73%, from 3.75% late Monday. The two-year yield, which more closely tracks expectations for the Fed’s upcoming moves, fell to 3.55% from 3.59% late Monday.

Yields sank as traders upped their forecasts for how much the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates by at its next meeting in November. They’re now betting on a 58% probability of another bigger-than-usual cut of half a percentage point. That’s up from a 53% probability the day before, according to data from CME Group.

Wall Street loves lower interest rates because they can give the economy a boost by making it less expensive to borrow money to buy a car, house or things on credit cards. They also tend to give a boost to prices for all kinds of investments.

Nvidia’s jump of 4.3% was the strongest force lifting the S&P 500 index Tuesday. The chip company’s stock had sunk 27% during the summer on worries that its price had shot too high in the frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology. But lower rates dampen that criticism by a bit, and Nvidia has been rallying back since early August. .

In stock markets abroad, indexes rose across much of Europe and Asia. France’s CAC 40 jumped 1.3%, South Korea’s Kospi rose 1.1% and Japan’s Nikkei 225 added 0.6%.

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AP Business Writers Elaine Kurtenbach and Matt Ott contributed.