By STAN CHOE AP Business Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are drifting on Tuesday, and financial markets worldwide are holding relatively steady as the wait continues for more updates on President Donald Trump’s tariffs and how much they’re affecting the economy.
The S&P 500 was virtually unchanged in early trading, coming off a modest gain that added to its stellar May, and is within 3.4% of its all-time high set earlier this year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 30 points, or 0.1%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was flat.
Dollar General jumped 12.9% for one of the market’s bigger gains after reporting stronger profit and revenue for the start of the year than analysts expected. The discount retailer also raised its forecasts for profit and revenue over the full year, though it cautioned that “uncertainty exists for the remainder of the year” because of tariffs and how they might affect its customers.
Many other companies have cut or withdrawn their financial forecasts for the upcoming year because of the uncertainty caused by Trump’s on-again-off-again rollout of tariffs. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said on Tuesday that it’s forecasting 1.6% growth for the U.S. economy this year, down from 2.8% last year.
But while Trump’s tariffs have certainly made U.S. households feel more pessimistic about where the economy and inflation are heading, reports have suggested only a moderate hit so far. Manufacturers have begun to feel the effects, but the overall job market has remained solid overall with layoffs remaining relatively low, and inflation has not taken off.
A report later in the morning will show how many job openings U.S. employers were advertising at the end of April. That will lead into a more important report on Friday, which will show how much hiring and firing U.S. employers did in May. Economists expect to see overall hiring slowed from April’s level.
On the trade front, hopes are still high on Wall Street that Trump will reach trade deals with other countries that will ultimately lower tariffs, particularly with the world’s second-largest economy. The U.S. side said President Donald Trump was expecting to speak with Chinese leader Xi Jinping this week. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said Tuesday that they had no information on that.
On Wall Street, Constellation Energy rose 5.7% after signing a 20-year deal to provide Meta Platforms with power from its nuclear plant in Clinton, Illinois.
In the bond market, Treasury yields eased a bit. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.42% from 4.46% late Monday.
It’s a cooldown following a sharp rise for yields over the last two months, in part on worries about how the U.S. government may be set to add trillions of dollars to its debt through tax cuts. Besides making it more expensive for U.S. households and businesses to borrow money, higher Treasury yields can also discourage investors from paying high prices for stocks and other investments.
In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed amid mostly modest moves across Europe and Asia.
Hong Kong was an exception, where the Hang Seng jumped 1.5%. That came despite a report showing Chinese manufacturing activity slowed in May.
South Korean markets were closed for a snap presidential election triggered by the ouster of Yoon Suk Yeol, a conservative who now faces an explosive trial on rebellion charges over his short-lived imposition of martial law in December.
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AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.