by Lewis Krauskopf, Sruthi Shankar and Ankika Biswas
(Reuters) – The New York Stock Exchange ended slightly higher on Monday, led by financials and industrials, as investors favored caution ahead of a flurry of earnings and comments from Federal Reserve (Fed) officials that could give an indication of the rate hike campaign.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.30%, or 100.71 points, to 33,987.18 points.
The broader S&P-500 gained 13.68 points, or 0.33%, to 4,151.32 points.
The Nasdaq Composite advanced for its part by 34.26 points (0.28%) to 12,157.72 points.
As several major U.S. banks released strong results last week, kicking off earnings season, markets are waiting to gauge the health of S&P-500 companies and the state of the economy. .
Noting the markets’ waiting stance, Angelo Kourkafas, strategist at Edward Jones, pointed out that many corporate results were on the horizon as well as “the Fed’s rate decision in a fortnight.”
Among the results expected this week are those of other large Americans including Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley, to give a more precise picture of the sector after the failure of two regional banks last month which raised fears of contagion.
Johnson & Johnson, Tesla and Netflix will also announce their results this week.
Revenues for S&P-500 companies are expected to be down 4.8 year-on-year in the first quarter, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
“Corporate earnings are emerging as the primary market catalyst in the short term and investors want to get a taste of that before making bets,” said Chuck Carlson, managing director of Horizon Investment Services in Indiana.
Yields on US Treasuries rose, pending statements expected from several Fed officials this week. Markets expect the US central bank to decide in early May on a 25 basis point rate hike.
Among the major S&P-500 sectors, financials rose 1.1% and industrials 0.8%, while energy fell 1.3%.
On the stock side, note the 2.7% decline in Alphabet, which weighed on the S&P-500 and the Nasdaq, while it was reported that Samsung Electronics is considering replacing Google with Bing, owned by Microsoft, on its devices.
(French version Jean Terzian)
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