Wall Street experienced a quiet session during morning trading on Tuesday, influenced by a lack of significant economic data and minimal updates on earnings from major large-cap companies.

Traders largely disregarded the latest hawkish comments from Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari, who noted progress on inflation seen in the latter half of 2023 had stalled and mentioned the Federal Reserve might raise rates if inflation becomes persistent.

Kashkari also revealed he initially predicted two rate cuts for the year, but now anticipated possibly maintaining two, or reducing to one or none by the June Summary of Economic Projections.

The S&P 500 saw a modest increase of 0.2% around midday in New York, with similar gains in the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 and the Dow Jones, all of which are poised for their fourth consecutive session of gains. The iShares Russell 2000 ETF IWM, representing small caps, performed notably well, rising 0.8%.

Treasury yields declined slightly by about 6 basis points across various maturities from 5 to 30 years, with the 10-year benchmark decreasing to 4.4%, marking a fifth consecutive day of declines. This led to a continued rally in bonds, exemplified by a 1.1% increase in the iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF TLT.

In corporate news, chipmaker Palantir Technologies Inc. PLTR saw its shares drop over 13% following weaker-than-expected guidance. Walt Disney Co DIS also fell sharply by over 10%, setting it on course for its worst performance day since November 2022.

In the cryptocurrency and precious metals markets, Bitcoin BTC/USD remained stable at $63,800, while both gold and silver declined by 0.5%

Tuesday’s Performance In Major U.S. Indices, ETFs

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY rose 0.3% to $518.80, the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average DIA rose 0.6% to $389.01 and the tech-heavy Invesco QQQ Trust QQQ rose 0.3% to $441.54, according to Benzinga Pro data. 

Sector-wise, the Real Estate Select Sector SPDR Fund XLE outperformed, up 1.1%, followed by the Materials Select Sector SPDR Fund XLB, 1%. The Consumer Discretionary Sector SPDR Fund XLY was the major laggard, down 0.3%.

Tuesday’s Stock Movers

• Rivian Automotive Inc. RIVN climbed over 5% amid rumors of a potential partnership with Apple Inc. AAPL.
• Simon Property Group Inc. SPG rose over 3% after the company reported upbeat results during the previous quarter. On the other hand, Lucid Group Inc. LCID fell over 14% after posting mixed quarterly results
• Other stocks reacting to earnings were GlobalFoundries Inc. GFS up over 8%, Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. VRTX, Datadog Inc. DDOG down over 10%, Duke Energy Corp. DUK up 1%, Transdigm Group Inc. TDG down 2%, DBA Sempra SRE down 0.4%, Kenvue Inc. KVUE up 5%, Rockwell Automation Inc. ROK up 1%, Microchip Technology Inc. MCHP down 1%, Williams Companies Inc. WMB up 0.8%, Fidelity National Information Services FIS and Axon Enterprise Inc. AXON down 4%.
• Companies reporting after the close include Arista Networks, Inc. ANET, Coupang, Inc. CPNG, Electronic Arts Inc. EA, GoPro, Inc. GPRO, iRobot Corporation IRBT, Luminar Technologies, Inc. LAZR, Match Group, Inc. MTCH, Occidental Petroleum Corporation OXY, Reddit, Rivian Automotive, Inc. RIVN, Twilio Inc. TWLO, Wynn Resorts, Limited WYNN, RingCentral, Inc. RNG and Lyft, Inc. LYFT.

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