Stock market today: Wall Street mostly higher on earnings ahead of Federal Reserve meeting

Wall Street barely budged early Tuesday as more companies post quarterly earnings and the U.S. Federal Reserve prepares to convene its latest monetary policy meeting and talk about interest rates.

Futures for the S&P 500 rose 0.2% before the bell, while futures for the technology-laden Nasdaq climbed 0.3%. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average were unchanged.

The Fed’s latest policy meeting starts Tuesday and wraps up the following day with an interest rate announcement expected Wednesday afternoon.

Virtually no one expects the U.S. central bank to touch rates this week, but most economists expect the Fed to begin easing its monetary policy at the following meeting in September.

The Fed raised interest rates 11 times beginning in March of 2022 in a bid to tame the inflation that took root as the economy rebounded from the pandemic recession. Fed officials haven’t touched their benchmark rate, which is at a more than two-decade high, in more than a year, a move that could provide a performance boost to companies and investors.

PayPal and JetBlue both reported higher-than-expected profit Tuesday for the second quarter and shares rose. JetBlue had been projected by most industry analysts to post a quarterly loss and its per-share profit of 8 cents sent shares up more than 3% before the opening bell.

PayPal’s surprisingly strong profit was fueled by an 8% year-over-year jump in revenue.

Pharmaceutical giant Merck also beat sales and profit targets but its shares slid 1.8% after it cut its full-year profit guidance due to acquisition expenses. Shares of Pfizer rose before the opening bell after it boosted its outlook for 2024.

Microsoft, Starbucks and Live Nation will post numbers from their most recent quarters later Tuesday, followed by Facebook owner Meta Platforms on Wednesday and Apple and Amazon on Thursday.

Big Tech stocks drove the S&P 500 to dozens of records this year, in part on investors’ frenzy around artificial intelligence technology, but they ran out of momentum this month amid criticism they have grown too expensive. Last week, investors found profit reports from Tesla and Alphabet underwhelming, which raised concerns that other stocks in what is known as the “Magnificent Seven” group of Big Tech stocks could also fail to impress.

In addition to the Fed, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan are holding monetary policy meetings this week.

Gross domestic product, the total output of goods and services, rose 0.3% in the second quarter in the 20 countries that use the euro currency, according to official figures released Tuesday by European Union statistics agency Eurostat.

But Germany, the largest eurozone economy, recorded a 0.1% fall in output.

In Europe at midday, France’s CAC 40 and Germany’s DAX each added 0.4%. Britain’s FTSE 100 declined 0.1%.

In Asian trading, Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 reversed earlier losses to rise 0.2% and finish at 38,525.95. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.5% to 7,953.20. South Korea’s Kospi shed 1% to 2,738.19. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slipped 1.4% to 17,002.91, while the Shanghai Composite index declined 0.4% to 2,879.30.

“Markets may be having a tough time positioning the central bank meetings this week,” Jing Yi Tan of Mizuho Bank said in a commentary.

In Japan, the government reported the nation’s unemployment rate in June stood at 2.5%, inching down from 2.6% the previous month, and marking the first improvement in five months.

In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude lost 52 cents to $75.29 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, fell 53 cents to $78.52.

In currency trading, the U.S. dollar edged up to 154.89 Japanese yen from 154.00 yen. The euro cost $1.0828, inching up from $1.0826.

On Monday, The S&P 500 edged up 0.1% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.1%. The Nasdaq composite added 0.1%.