Stock market today: Wall Street drifts after French market rises following election results

NEW YORK — U.S. stocks rose Monday after the French market rebounded, as the election continued to cause fluctuations in financial markets around the world.

The S&P 500 index rose 0.2% in afternoon trading, at the start of a shortened four-day week that includes the July 4 holiday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 65 points, or 0.2%, as of 12:51 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq Composite was up 0.7%.

Some of the world’s strongest action occurred across the Atlantic, where the CAC 40 index in Paris jumped 2.8% before stabilizing at a 1.1% gain. The results in France suggest that a far-right political party may fail to secure a decisive majority in the country’s legislative elections. This opens the door for France to avoid a worst-case scenario for financial markets, where such a victory could give rise to policies that would significantly increase French government debt and other challenges.

It’s a big year for elections around the world, with voters heading to the polls in the UK later this week and elsewhere soon. In the US, pollsters are gauging the aftermath of last week’s debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. All of this underscores “political polarisation and how elections drive the economy, rather than the other way around,” according to Nick Gentle and others in Barclays’ product management group.

Trump Media & Technology Group, whose stock has risen and fallen with Trump’s chances at the White House, rose 2.6% to $33.58. Shares of the company behind Trump’s Truth Social platform, however, remain well below their level of around $70 reached earlier this year.

In the bond market, Treasury yields rose, as they did Friday, immediately after the Biden-Trump debate. The increased prospects of a Republican victory in November sent traders back to the moves of 2016, according to Morgan Stanley strategists. In addition to pushing rates higher, traders also invested in stocks of oil and gas and financial companies, among other moves.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note climbed to 4.48%, up from 4.39% late Friday and 4.29% late Thursday. That represents a slight reversal of the broad trend since the spring, when the 10-year Treasury yield topped 4.70% in late April.

Yields have largely eased on hopes that inflation will slow enough to convince the Federal Reserve to cut its main interest rate later this year, down from its highest level in more than two decades. High rates have slowed the U.S. economy by making it more expensive to borrow for a house, a car, or anything else.

Hopes for rate cuts grew stronger after a report Monday showed that the U.S. manufacturing sector weakened more than economists had expected last month. Perhaps more importantly for Wall Street, the Institute for Supply Management report also indicated that price increases are slowing, even as prices continue to rise. Taken together, the data could offer more evidence of the easing inflation pressures the Fed wants before cutting rates.

The highlight of the week in economic statistics will likely be Friday, when the U.S. government releases the number of workers hired in June. Economists expect total hiring to slow to 190,000, from 272,000 in May. That would put the figure closer to what Bank of America calls the “Goldilocks” number, or about 150,000, give or take 25,000.

At this level, the U.S. economy could continue to grow and avoid a recession without being strong enough to put upward pressure on inflation.

On Wall Street, Chewy swung from a big early gain to a 5.8% loss after a widely followed trader named Keith Gill revealed he owns just over 9 million shares of the pet supply company. That’s about 6.6% of the entire company, according to a filing Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Gill rose to fame during the 2021 stock meme craze, which saw GameStop soar to new heights in the market. Gill, who goes by “Roaring Kitty” and other nicknames, became the face of the fans who pushed GameStop higher. Gill had recently started talking about GameStop again, which helped its stock rally. But it fell 6% on Monday after his Chewy revelation.

Elsewhere on Wall Street, Spirit AeroSystems rose 3.8% after Boeing said it would buy the maker of fuselages and other aircraft parts for $4.7 billion in stock and assume about $3.6 billion of its debt.

Boeing, which rose 2.5%, faces increased scrutiny from the government and airlines that buy its planes due to concerns about safety and quality. Boeing previously owned Spirit AeroSystems, and the buyout reverses a long-standing company strategy of outsourcing key tasks on its jetliners.

Meta Platforms fell 0.4% after European Union regulators accused it of breaking the bloc’s new digital competition rules by forcing Facebook and Instagram users to choose between seeing ads or paying to avoid them.

In overseas stock markets, Japan’s Nikkei 225 index gained 0.1 percent after a quarterly survey by the Bank of Japan called “tankan” showed a slight improvement in confidence among the country’s biggest manufacturers between April and June.

Shanghai shares rose 0.9% after mixed data on the world’s second-largest economy.

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AP writers Matt Ott and Zimo Zhong contributed.