Mixed picture on Wall Street, rally for Walmart

Wall Street’s main indexes are mixed after a recent rally that took them to a three-month high and as investors continue to assess corporate results, with encouraging financials from Walmart providing a boost to investor sentiment today.

The S&P is up more than 17% from its mid-June lows, although it remains about 10% below its January 3 all-time high.

The stock rally is fueled by hopes that inflation has peaked and the Federal Reserve will now be able to slow its tightening of monetary policy, abandoning its aggressive rate hikes that reached 75 basis points in its last two meetings .

Poor economic data from China and a disappointing survey of US East Coast manufacturing released earlier in the week may give the Fed more reason to push ahead with softer interest rate hikes next.

It is noted that on Wednesday the minutes of the last meeting of the Fed will be made public, which are expected to provide new information on the reasoning of the central bank.

Indicators – Statistics

On the board, the Dow Jones added 67.36 points, or 0.20%, to 33,979.80, while the S&P 500 lost 3.35 points, or -0.08%, to 4,293.79. The tech Nasdaq was down 64.82 points, or -0.49%, at 13,060.46.

Of the 30 stocks that make up the Dow Jones industrial index, 19 are moving with a positive sign and 11 with a negative sign. Walmart was the biggest gainer with gains of $6.76 or 5.10% to $139.36, followed by Home Depot at $320.96 with an increase of 2.02% and the Dow with gains of 0.94 % to $55.86

The jump in Walmart shares comes after it reported earnings and revenue that beat analysts’ estimates, while the retail giant revised upward its full-year guidance.

Home Depot also reported record sales for the second quarter today and reaffirmed its guidance for the full year.

The biggest losers are Visa (-1.22%), Intel (-1.21%) and Salesforce (-1.13%).

The corporate earnings period wraps up in the next few days with announcements from Target Corp. and Lowe’s Cos. on Wednesday and Kohl’s Corp. on Thursday.

By the end of the day, industrial production rose 0.6 percent in July, the Federal Reserve said, beating analysts’ estimates of a 0.3 percent rise in a poll by The Wall Street Journal.

Capacity utilization rebounded to 80.3% in July from 79.9% the previous month, central bank data showed. Analysts had expected it to rebound to 80.2%.

For manufacturing in particular, Fed data showed output rose 0.7% in July after falling in the previous two months. In contrast, output from utilities fell 0.8% in July. Finally, mining production rose 0.7%, completing three consecutive months of strong gains.