Stock market today: Tesla soars as most of Wall Street drifts in mixed trading
U.S. stocks are drifting in mixed trading
NEW YORK — U.S. stocks are drifting Wednesday, as Wall Street’s big week so far lets off the accelerator.
The S&P 500 was 0.1% higher in afternoon trading. Its two-day winning streak to start the week erased nearly two-thirds of last week’s steep loss.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 19 points, or 0.1%, as of 2:02 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.3% higher.
Tesla soared 11.6% after saying the night before that it would accelerate production of new, more affordable vehicles, which investors have been hoping will kickstart growth. The announcement helped investors look past the 55% drop in profit that Tesla reported.
Tesla is the first of the group of stocks known as the “Magnificent Seven” to report its results for the start of 2024. The focus is on the small group of stocks because they drove most of the U.S. stock market’s gain last year, and they’ll need to perform to justify their high prices.
Companies broadly will likely need to deliver fatter profits if they want their stock prices to rise. That’s because they’re unlikely to get much help from the other lever that can lift stock prices: interest rates.
Treasury yields were higher in the bond market, raising the pressure on stocks, following the latest report on the U.S. economy to come in hotter than forecast. A string of recent such reports has diminished hopes that the Federal Reserve may deliver the three cuts to interest rates this year that it had earlier signaled.
Wednesday’s report said that orders for machinery, airplanes and other long-lasting manufactured goods were stronger last month than expected. Wall Street is in an awkward place where it wants the economy to avoid a painful
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