Stock market today: Wall Street holds steady as a torrent of earnings reports begins

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stock indexes are holding relatively steady Tuesday as earnings reporting season ramps up for big companies.

The S&P 500 was 0.2% higher in morning trading and on track for a second straight gain after breaking a three-day losing streak. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 66 points, or 0.2%, as of 10:15 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.3% higher.

Dozens of companies are reporting their results for the spring on Tuesday, with a couple highly influential Big Tech companies coming after trading ends for the day in Alphabet and Tesla. Expectations are generally high, and analysts are forecasting the strongest profit growth for S&P 500 companies since late 2021, according to FactSet.

Danaher was one of the strongest forces lifting the S&P 500 after the life sciences company rose 7.1%. It reported better profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected, in part because of strength at its Cepheid molecular testing business.

GE Aerospace thrust 6.7% higher after beating analysts’ forecasts for profit in the spring and raising its forecast for earnings over the full year.

Sherwin-Williams climbed 3.7% after it also reported stronger profit than expected. It said it’s seeing growth in demand for paint from new residential customers, and it expects the momentum to continue through the year. Through its customers, the paint and coatings company has been feeling the pain of high interest rates meant to get inflation under control.

High mortgage rates have chilled the housing industry, for example, and a report on Tuesday showed sales of previously occupied homes weakened by even more in June than economists expected. Sales slowed in part because prices for previously occupied homes are at the highest ever recorded, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Easier times may be ahead for rates. With inflation slowing, the wide expectation on Wall Street is for the Federal Reserve to begin lowering its main interest rate in September. That would offer some relief for both the economy and financial markets after the Fed has held the federal funds rate at the highest level in more than two decades.

Treasury yields have sunk since the spring on such expectations, and they ticked a bit lower again on Tuesday. The yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.22% from 4.25% late Monday.

On the losing end of Wall Street, UPS tumbled 12.7% after delivering weaker profit and revenue for the spring than analysts expected. But CEO Carol Tomé said the company’s U.S. business delivered more packages than a year earlier, its first such growth in nine quarters, and called it a “significant turning point for our company.”

Comcast dropped 5.6% after reporting revenue for the spring that fell short of expectations. Its biggest declines came from lower attendance at its U.S. theme parks and from its studios business, which didn’t have as big hits as last year’s “The Super Mario Bros.” and “Fast X” movies.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed across Asia and Europe.

Chinese markets were some of the weakest, and stocks fell 0.9% in Hong Kong and 1.6% in Shanghai. Analysts described moves by China’s central bank to cut two key interest rates on Monday as not particularly inspiring.

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AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.