Stock market today: Wall Street rises in morning trading following 3 straight gains

By DAMIAN J. TROISE
AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks rose in morning trading on Wednesday following several updates showing that the job market continued cooling, but economic growth remained resilient.

The S&P 500 rose 0.5% and continued to chip away at the market’s losses in August. The benchmark index is coming off of three straight gains.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 131 points, or 0.4%, to 34,984 as of 10:15 a.m. and the Nasdaq composite rose 0.7%.

Technology stocks led the market’s gains. Apple jumped 1.9% and Palo Alto Networks rose 2.3%.

HP was on the losing end with a 8.1% slump after cutting its profit forecast for the year.

Wall Street’s focus this week remains a broad mix of economic updates that investors hope will paint a clearer picture of where the economy is headed and whether the Federal Reserve has enough reason to hold off on any additional interest rate hikes.

A survey of private-sector employers in the U.S. showed that hiring cooled more than expected by economists. The report reinforces the latest government data on job openings from Tuesday, which also showed that hiring in the hot employment market is coming off of its boil.

The U.S. downgraded its economic growth estimate for the second quarter to an annual rate of 2.1% from 2.4%. Economists had forecast that the gross domestic product, or GDP, assessment would remain unchanged from the initial estimate, though it still marks a slight increase from growth of 2% during the first quarter.

Treasury yields fell following the latest economic reports. The yield on the 10-year Treasury slipped to 4.10% from about 4.15% just before the latest GDP report. It stood at 4.12% late Tuesday.

The yield on the 2-year Treasury, which tracks expectations for the Fed, fell to 4.86% from a level of 4.90% prior to the latest GDP release. It stood at 4.89% late Tuesday.

The latest round of economic updates are signaling that the Fed may be able to pause hiking its main interest rate, which it has pushed to its highest level since 2001 in an effort to tame inflation. The central bank held rates steady at its last meeting and investors expect the same at its upcoming meeting in September.

Wall Street is also hoping that economic data this week shows that the Fed’s goal of a so-called “soft landing” is possible. The central bank hoped to raise interest rates enough to tame inflation without crashing the economy into a recession. Investors have several big pieces of data on tap for the rest of the week, including an important inflation report on Thursday and big employment report on Friday.

Markets in Asia and Europe were mixed.

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Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed to this report.