Wall Street today: S&P 500, Dow Jones gain amid earnings reports

On Wall Street, the benchmark S&P 500 and the blue-chip Dow Jones gained on Tuesday, led by financial stocks amid anticipation of interest rate decision from the Federal Reserve.

Investors are keenly awaiting Fed’s interest rate decision to be announced on Wednesday.

At 10:10 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 139.83 points, or 0.34 per cent, at 40,679.76, the S&P 500 was up 8.89 points, or 0.16 per cent, at 5,472.43, and the Nasdaq Composite was down 4.29 points, or 0.02 per cent, at 17,365.91.

At the opening bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 82.2 points, or 0.20 per cent, to 40,622.13. The S&P 500 rose 15.2 points, or 0.28 per cent, to 5,478.73, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 53.9 points, or 0.31 per cent, to 17,424.1.

Microsoft stock rose 0.2 per cent ahead of its quarterly results later in the day.

Shares of Apple, Amazon.com, Meta Platforms and Alphabet gained between 0.3 per cent and 0.6 per cent.

AI-chip designer Nvidia’s stock dropped 1.0 per cent.

The bank index was rose 1.5 per cent. The small-caps index added 0.8 per cent.

Procter & Gamble stock tumbles 6.1 per cent after the company’s fourth quarter sales fell short of expectations.

Merck stock lost 7.1 per cent after the drugmaker cut its annual profit forecast.

PayPal stock climbed 8.3 per cent after the company beat analysts' profit estimates.

JetBlue Airways stock soared 19.7% after reporting quarterly profit.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury was unchanged from Monday’s 4.17 per cent.

Bullion

Gold prices rose on Tuesday on optimism over Fed rate cut in September.

Spot gold was up 0.4 per cent at $2,392.75 per ounce as of 1355 GMT.

US gold futures rose 0.5 per cent to $2,389.70.

Spot silver rose 0.3 per cent to $27.94 per ounce.

Crude oil

Oil prices fell on Tuesday as worries about demand in China offset the prospect of lower US crude and product inventories.

Brent crude fell by 77 cents, or 0.97 per cent, to $79.01 a barrel by 1317 GMT. US WTI crude was down 66 cents, or 0.87 per cent, at $75.15.