Stocks finish higher after shaky start

Earnings reports, Fed decision could sway investors this week

Wall Street capped a wobbly day for stocks with modest gains Monday, nudging the major indexes further into record territory.

The S&P 500 shrugged off an early slide and gained 0.2 percent. Consumer-oriented companies, banks and energy and communications stocks helped lift the market. Those gains were kept in check by a pullback in health care and technology companies. Treasury yields mostly rose.

The modest gains follow a turbulent week for the market. A week ago, stocks fell sharply amid worries that fast-spreading variants of the coronavirus could threaten the economic recovery.

But the swoon was shortlived, and the major stock indexes rallied to record highs on Friday.

Trading was more muted Monday, as investors monitored a steady flow of corporate earnings and looked ahead to Wednesday, when the Federal Reserve is due to deliver an update on the economy and its interest rate policy.

Traders will be listening for clues as to when the central bank might start winding down its extraordinary support measures for the economy and how concerned it is about inflation.

“The mood still revolves around inflation and whether it is transitory or not,” said Keith Buchanan, senior portfolio manager at Globalt

Investments.

The S&P 500 rose 10.51 points to 4,422.30. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 82.76 points, or 0.2 percent, to 35,144.31. The Nasdaq composite added 3.72 points, or less than 0.1 percent, to 14,840.71.

Smaller companies fared slightly better than the broader market. The Russell 2000 index rose 7.27 points, or 0.3 percent, to 2,216.92.

Treasury yields mostly rose. The yield on the 10year Treasury rose to 1.30 percent from 1.28 percent late Friday. The yield, which is a benchmark for interest rates on mortgages and other consumer loans, has been mostly falling amid increasing unease over the economy since climbing to about 1.75 percent in late March.

Investors are awaiting earnings reports from several large companies this week. Google’s parent company, Alphabet, will report earnings Tuesday, along with Apple and Microsoft. Pfizer and Boeing report their results on Wednesday.

The price of Bitcoin rose about 9 percent to $37,500, according to Coindesk. Amazon is reportedly considering accepting it as payment.