Wall Street tiptoes around its records as its busy week picks up momentum

NEW YORK AP U S stock indexes are tiptoeing around their record levels on Tuesday as an incredibly busy week for Wall Street picks up momentum The S P was up in morning trading after setting an all-time high in six straight days The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down points or less than as of a m Eastern time and the Nasdaq composite was adding to its own record JetBlue Airways climbed and SoFi Technologies jumped but Merck dropped following a torrent of profit reports from big U S companies They re among the hundreds of companies telling investors this week how much they made during the spring including nearly a third of the stocks in the S P index Treasury yields eased in the bond field as the Federal Reserve gets set to begin a two-day meeting where they will decide what to do with short-term interest rates Despite angry lobbying from President Donald Trump for lower rates which would give the financial market a boost the widespread expectation is that the Fed will wait for more content about how Trump s tariffs are affecting inflation and the business sector before making its next move The U S economic system has seemed to hold up OK so far despite the pressures of tariffs though it does appear to be slowing One analysis on Tuesday declared that U S employers were advertising fewer job openings at the end of June than a month before though still a bit more than economists expected A separate statement mentioned confidence rose among U S consumers but a measure of their expectations for the commercial sector in the short term remains below the level that typically signals a recession ahead Consumer confidence has stabilized since May rebounding from April s plunge but remains below last year s heady levels according to Stephanie Guichard senior economist global indicators at The Conference Board Chinese stock indexes meanwhile were mixed as top transaction bureaucrats from the world s two largest economies headed into a second day of talks about tariffs U S Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng were meeting in Sweden s capital and working against an Aug deadline If they don t reach a deal or at least an extension on their truce by then triple-digit tariffs are set to resume Later this week another deadline is looming on Friday for several of Trump s proposed tariffs on other countries And if that weren t enough several highly anticipated economic reports are also on the way including the latest monthly update on the job territory This jam-packed week could prove pivotal in determining whether the U S stock sphere can keep climbing to more records or succumb to criticism that it s grown too expensive following its quick leap in current months One way companies can tamp down such criticism is to deliver solid progress in profits That helped Cadence Design Systems whose stock came into the day with a gain of for the year so far The computational platform company revealed it s continuing to benefit from the flood of venture into the artificial-intelligence industry and it raised its forecast for revenue improvement this year Its stock rose But investors have also been punishing stocks of companies that have failed to meet expectations so far this reporting season UnitedHealth Group dropped after reporting a profit for the spring that fell short of analysts expectations It also gave a forecast for profit over all of that investors determined disappointing The wellness care giant disclosed it expected to earn at least per share when analysts were looking for something close to according to FactSet Shares of Novo Nordisk that bargain in the United States tumbled after the Danish company cut its forecast for sales progress this year in part because of lower expectations for its Wegovy weight-loss drug because of high competition It also named a new chief executive officer In stock markets abroad Japan s Nikkei fell but indexes elsewhere rose across much of Asia and Europe In the bond realm the yield on the -year U S Treasury eased to from late Monday AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed Source