Stock Market Today: Stocks Rise Ahead of Fed, Big Tech Earnings

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published 24 July 2023

Stocks closed higher Monday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average extending its longest daily win streak in years.

Sentiment is upbeat ahead of a busy week on Wall Street, with the next Fed meeting set to kick off tomorrow and several mega-cap stocks on the earnings calendar.

The Federal Reserve starts its two-day policy meeting tomorrow, and the central bank is widely expected to lift rates by 25 basis points (0.25%) when it wraps up on Wednesday. What the market cares most about, however, is what the Fed plans to do next. Futures traders are currently pricing in low probabilities for any additional rate hikes in 2023 after this week's meeting, according to CME Group.

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Additionally, an onslaught of corporate earnings reports are slated for release over the next several days. "About 18% of S&P 500 names have reported and 40% more will release earnings this week," says Michael Reinking, senior market analyst at the New York Stock Exchange. Big Tech will be in focus over the next several days, with blue chip stocks Alphabet (GOOGL, +1.3%) and Microsoft (MSFT, +0.4%) set to disclose their quarterly results after tomorrow's close.

Ahead of these key – and potentially market-moving – events, the major benchmarks closed modestly higher. The blue chip Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.5% to 35,411, marking its 11th straight gain, or its longest daily win streak since 2017. Meanwhile, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite tacked on 0.2% to 14,058, while the broader S&P 500 added 0.4% to 4,554.

AMC, Mattel stocks climb on Barbie buzz

In single-stock news, AMC Entertainment Holdings (AMC) spiked 33.0% after the cinema chain said it had its busiest weekend since 2019 thanks to the weekend releases of Barbie and Oppenheimer. Separately, AMC CEO Adam Aron said the company submitted a modified proposal to convert its AMC Entertainment Holding (APE, -0.3%) preferred shares into common stock. A Delaware judge on Friday blocked the plan AMC previously submitted. The meme stock has had a volatile year, but is now up 44% since the start of 2023.

Mattel (MAT) also got a lift from Barbie's blockbuster weekend. Shares in the maker of Barbie toys climbed 1.8%, and are now up 21% for the year-to-date.

Keep an eye on energy stocks as oil prices climb

Today's stock market gains were fairly broad based, with all but two of the 11 S&P 500 sectors closing higher. Energy was by far the best performer, jumping 1.6% thanks to solid preliminary earnings from oil major Chevron (CVX, +2.0%), which said it distributed a record $7.2 billion to shareholders through stock buybacks and dividends in Q2.

Also boosting oil stocks were rising U.S. crude futures, which finished up 2.2% to $78.74 per barrel – their highest close since April.

"Oil is also getting a boost from Wall Street as optimism grows that the end of the Fed’s rate hiking campaign appears it could be here," says Edward Moya, senior market strategist at currency data provider OANDA. "With Europe lagging by a couple months, we could start seeing all the major economies eyeing easing as the next move," the strategist adds. That, in turn, could keep the bullish momentum in oil prices going.

Continued gains for crude should benefit the top-rated energy stocks, as well as select energy ETFs.

With over a decade of experience writing about the stock market, Karee Venema is the senior investing editor at Kiplinger.com. She joined the publication in April 2021 after 10 years of working as an investing writer and columnist at Schaeffer's Investment Research. In her previous role, Karee focused primarily on options trading, as well as technical, fundamental and sentiment analysis.