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

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

The S&P 500 was virtually unchanged in early trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 50 points, or 0.1%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.1% lower.

Dozens of companies in the S&P 500 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 the S&P 500 since late 2021, according to FactSet.

UPS tumbled 12.3% after it delivered 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.”

Danaher jumped 7.6% after reporting stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than expected. The life sciences company credited strength for its Cepheid molecular testing business.

Coca-Cola rose 1.6% after the beverage giant topped Wall Street’s forecasts and raised its full-year sales outlook

Sherwin-Williams climbed 4.5% 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 coming later in the morning will show the latest trends in sales for previously occupied homes. Economists expect it to show a drop in June from May.

Easier times may be ahead. 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.

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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 edged down to 4.24% from 4.25% late Monday.

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.

Stan Choe, The Associated Press