Wall Street rallies to claw back some of last week’s sharp loss

NEW YORK â€”  U.S. stocks climbed Monday to claw back some of the losses from their worst week in nearly a year and a half.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rallied 1.2%, though it didn’t recoup all of its drop from Friday, let alone from the rest of the four-day losing streak that it broke. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 484 points, or 1.2%, as did the Nasdaq composite.

Boeing climbed 3.4% after reaching a tentative deal with its largest union on a new contract that, if ratified, would avoid a strike that threatened to shut down aircraft production by the end of the week. Boeing said 33,000 workers represented by the International Assn. of Machinists and Aerospace Workers would get pay raises of 25% over the four-year contract.

Nvidia and other Big Tech companies also returned to their long-held position of leading the market, at least briefly. Nvidia climbed 3.5% and was the strongest force pushing the S&P 500 upward. That cut into its 13.9% tumble last week as questions continued about whether its stock price went too high in investors’ frenzy around artificial intelligence, even if Nvidia has continued to top analysts’ expectations for growth.

After likewise climbing a bit in the morning, Treasury yields later pared their gains. That followed sharp swings in the bond market last week, when a highly anticipated update on the U.S. job market came in weak enough to worsen worries about the slowing U.S. economy.

The Federal Reserve has been intentionally pressing the brakes on the economy through high interest rates to stifle high inflation. It’s about to start lowering rates this month, which would ease the pressure on the economy, as it turns its focus toward protecting the job market and avoiding a recession. The question on Wall Street is if the Fed’s shift in focus will prove to be too late.

Cuts to interest rates give stock prices a boost, but if an economic downturn does hit, it could more than offset such a benefit by dragging down profits for companies. That’s what happened in 2007, for example, when the Great Recession wrecked the global economy and financial markets.

“Today, the absence of glaring household or corporate balance sheet vulnerabilities means Fed easing should be enough to prevent recession, and should provide investors some optimism for the future of the market,� said Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management.

On Wall Street, Palantir Technologies jumped 14.1% in its first trading after S&P Dow Jones Indices said it would add the company to its widely followed S&P 500 index. Dell Technologies rose 3.8% after likewise getting a notice of promotion to the index.

Apple’s stock was virtually flat after the company unveiled its latest iPhone model, the 16. It’s the first model to be tailored specifically for artificial intelligence, with expected improvements to its often dim-witted virtual assistant, Siri.

Trading in Big Lots was halted after the discount retailer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and said it plans to sell its assets and ongoing business operations to private equity firm Nexus Capital Management.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 62.63 points to 5,471.05. The Dow gained 484.18 points to 40,829.59, and the Nasdaq gained 193.77 points to 16,884.60.

In the bond market, the 10-year Treasury yield edged down to 3.71% from 3.72% late Friday.

This week will feature the latest monthly updates on inflation at the consumer and wholesale levels. Such reports used to be the most anticipated economic data of each month, but market watchers say they’re now taking the back seat to updates on the job market because of the worries about a possible recession.

Of course, if the reports show an unexpected surge in inflation, that could put the Federal Reserve in its worst-case scenario. Lower interest rates could help boost the economy, but they could also give inflation more fuel.

In stock markets abroad, indexes rose in much of Europe after falling in Asia. Japan’s Nikkei 225 slipped 0.5% after the country’s economic growth for the second quarter was revised below expectations.

Chinese stocks racked up losses after worse-than-expected inflation data disappointed investors. Indexes fell 1.4% in Hong Kong and 1.1% in Shanghai.

Choe writes for the Associated Press.