New York, Oct. 31 (BUS): Shares slipped in afternoon trading on Wall Street on Monday, but with one day remaining in October, major indexes are still heading for big gains for the month.
The S&P 500 was down 0.3% as of 12:18 p.m. ET. The benchmark index is on track to post its first monthly gain since July after two consecutive monthly losses.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 21 points, or 0.1%, to 32,837 and is on track for its biggest monthly gain since at least 1987, according to the Associated Press.
The Nasdaq is down 0.5% and is also on track for its first monthly gain since July. Technology and telecoms stocks were the biggest drawbacks in the broader market on Monday. Apple shares fell 1.1 percent and the parent company’s shares fell 1.3 percent.
Stocks gained throughout October as investors shifted their focus to the latest round of corporate earnings.
More than half of the companies within the S&P 500 reported results and showed overall earnings growth of 2.3%, according to FactSet.
The companies have so far presented investors with a mixed set of results and expectations as Wall Street tries to get a better picture of the economy.
Inflation remains very high and the Federal Reserve has aggressively raised interest rates to try to slow the economy and tame high prices. The strategy risks hitting the brakes hard on economic growth and pushing the economy into recession.
Bond yields have been hovering near multi-year highs as the Federal Reserve continues to raise interest rates. The yield on the two-year Treasury, which tends to track expectations for the Fed’s action, rose to 4.48% from 4.42% late Friday.
Inflation has been a global problem, and the European Union’s statistics agency, Eurostat, reported on Monday that inflation has set a new record in 19 countries that use the euro currency.
insult