Stocks gain ahead of 2Q earnings coverage

NEW YORK — A wobbly day of trading ended with meager gains for U.S. stock indexes Monday, enough to nudge them further into record territory, as the curtain rose on what’s expected to be the weakest earnings reporting season in years.

Financial stocks fell even though Citigroup Inc. said it made more money last quarter than analysts expected. Energy stocks were also weak, but gains for technology and health care stocks helped tip the S&P 500 and other indexes past the highs set on Friday.

The S&P 500 rose 0.53 points, or less than 0.1 percent, to 3,014.30 after drifting between a gain of 0.1 percent and a loss of 0.2 percent earlier in the day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 27.13, or 0.1 percent, to 27,359.16 and the Nasdaq composite added 14.04, or 0.2 percent, to 8,258.19.

Stocks have jumped since early June on increasing expectations the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates to help the economy, and investors are virtually certain it will happen at the next Fed meeting at the end of this month. The only question, investors said, is how deeply the Fed will cut when it lowers rates for the first time in a decade.

Until then, the main drivers for the market will likely be the hundreds of earnings reports scheduled to come from big companies.

Expectations are generally dim, and Wall Street is forecasting a 3 percent drop in earnings per share for S&P 500 companies from a year ago. That would mark the first back-to-back drop in three years, according to FactSet. This week, roughly a fifth of the companies in the S&P 500 are set to report their second-quarter results.

Citigroup was one of the reporting season’s early headliners, but its stock initially fell as much as 2.4 percent after reporting betterthan-expected results before it ended Monday down only 0.1 percent.

Other banks didn’t have as strong a recovery, and financial stocks in the S&P 500 dropped 0.5 percent for the second-sharpest loss among the 11 sectors that make up the index. JPMorgan Chase & Co., which will report its secondquarter results today , fell 1.2 percent and was the biggest individual drag on the S&P 500.

Several economic reports are also on the schedule this week, including updates on retail sales, shoppers’ confidence and the housing industry. Investors don’t expect this week’s reports to alter the direction of the Fed.

The White House’s repeated threats to raise tariffs has made companies at home more hesitant and has hurt trade internationally. They’re a big reason China on Monday reported its weakest quarter of economic growth in at least 26 years.

Energy stocks fell 0.9 percent Monday for the sharpest drop among the 11 sectors that make up the S&P 500. Lower prices for oil and natural gas dented shares across the industry.