Stocks edge higher as banks, industrials offset tech slide

Stocks capped another wobbly day of trading on Wall Street with modest gains Tuesday, as financial and industrial companies helped lift the market, outweighing a pullback in technology stocks.

The S&P 500 recovered from an early slip and eked out a 0.1 percent gain, enough to eclipse the record high it set Friday. The majority of companies in the benchmark index made gains, but they were kept in check by technology companies, which have an outsized weight on the S&P 500.

Banks made some of the strongest gains as bond yields edged higher. Banks benefit from higher yields, which allow them to charge higher interest rates on loans. The yield on the 10year Treasury rose to 1.35 percent from 1.31 percent late Monday.

Oil prices pulled up after sliding most of the last week and into Monday. U.S. benchmark crude oil rose 2.7 percent and helped lift the S&P 500’s energy sector to 1.7 percent gain. Exxon Mobil rose 1.7 percent and Chevron gained 1.8 percent.

The broader market remains choppy with investors in the midst of a relatively quiet week. The latest round of corporate earnings is nearly finished and there are only a few pieces of economic data expected.

The S&P 500 gained 4.40 points to 4,436.75. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 162.82 points, or 0.5 percent, to 35,264.67. The blue-chip index also notched an all-time high.

The slide in technology stocks weighed on the techheavy Nasdaq, which lost 72.09 points, or 0.5 percent, to 14,788.09. Small company stocks rose. The Russell 2000 index gained 4.55 points, or 0.2 percent, to 2,239.36.

Wall Street is still trying to gauge the pace of economic growth amid new worries about the latest wave of COVID-19 from the more contagious delta variant.