Wall Street inches up as Tesla and Apple gain

Wall Street's main indexes crept higher in volatile trading on Monday as shares of Tesla and Apple advanced while investors exercised caution ahead of the Federal Reserve's interest rate decision later in the week.

Tesla shares shot up nearly 13%, driving a 1.8% rise in the consumer discretionary sector, after the electric vehicle maker cleared some key regulatory hurdles that had long hindered the roll-out of its self-driving software in China, its secondlargest market.

Apple added 3.5% after a report that the iphone maker had renewed discussions with Openai about using the startup's generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology. Bernstein upgraded the stock to "outperform".

U.S. stocks closed higher on Friday, buoyed by moderate inflation data and a rally in megacap growth stocks following robust quarterly results from technology heavyweights Alphabet and Microsoft.

Also offering support, Israelhamas peace talks in Cairo eased fears of a wider conflict in the Middle East.

Focus will now shift to the Fed's interest rate decision due on Wednesday, ahead of a key jobs report on Friday that could set the tone for market direction in the near-term.

"Markets are a little fragile right now and people are hanging on every data point and are still trying to figure out whether the inflation numbers in the three months were a beginning of a trend and whether GDP last month was a significant slowdown or a one-off," said Chris Jackson, senior vice president at UBS Wealth Management.

Money markets are pricing in just about 35 basis points (bps) of interest rate cuts this year, down from about 150 bps seen at the beginning of the year, according to LSEG.

At 09:46 a.m. the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 86.82 points, or 0.23%, to 38,326.48, the S&P 500 gained 6.08 points, or 0.12%, to 5,106.04 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 10.48 points, or 0.08%, to 15,940.42.