Rising tech stocks send Nasdaq to a record as most of Wall Street stumbles

NEW YORK â€”  Rallying technology stocks sent the Nasdaq composite index to a record on Tuesday, but trading was mixed elsewhere on Wall Street as home builders and Ford Motor sank after the latest profit reports.

The S&P 500 rose 0.2%, inching closer to its all-time high set earlier this month, even though most of the stocks in the index fell for the day.

Gains for influential major tech stocks helped mask weakness elsewhere, and they pushed the Nasdaq composite up 0.8% to top its last all-time high set in July. The Dow Jones industrial average, meanwhile, fell 0.4%.

Alphabet rose 1.8% ahead of its profit report, which arrived after trading ended for the day. The parent company of Google is the latest member of the group of stocks known as the “Magnificent Seven� to report its quarterly results, and each will have to deliver big growth to justify their high prices.

Other market heavyweights such as Microsoft and Meta Platforms were among the strongest forces pushing the S&P 500 up.

They helped offset an 8.4% drop for Ford, which said an underlying measure of profit for the full year probably will come in at the bottom end of its forecast range. The automaker said stubbornly high warranty expenses and other costs are holding back its earnings, though its results for the third quarter were better than analysts expected.

JetBlue Airways lost 17.1% even though its results for the latest quarter were better than expected. The carrier said its revenue could fall between 3% and 7% in the last three months of 2024 from a year earlier, hurt by this month’s Hurricane Milton and the upcoming U.S. presidential election.

D.R. Horton tumbled 7.2% after the home builder reported weaker profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Executive Chair David Auld said some potential buyers are waiting for mortgage rates to become more affordable and are sitting on the sidelines.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 9.40 points to 5,832.92. The Dow fell 154.52 points to 42,233.05, and the Nasdaq composite rose 145.56 points to 18,712.75.

Mortgage rates have been climbing recently because the 10-year Treasury yield has been charging higher.

Yields have rallied as report after report has shown the U.S. economy remains stronger than expected. On Tuesday, reports said confidence among U.S. consumers jumped more than economists expected, while the number of job openings edged lower in September, but the number of hires remained relatively steady.

Such numbers have forced traders to ratchet back expectations for how much the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates, now that it’s just as focused on keeping the economy humming as getting inflation down. Traders are even betting on a slim chance the Fed will keep its main interest rate steady at its meeting next week, according to data from CME Group.

That’s after the Fed kicked off its rate-cutting campaign in September with a larger-than-usual reduction. Just a month ago, many traders were thinking the Fed would follow up in November with another bigger-than-usual cut.

Yields have also climbed as investors have seen former President Trump’s chances of reelection improving. Economists say a Trump win could help push inflation higher in the long term, and worsening inflation could lead to higher interest rates.

Trump Media & Technology Group, which tends to move more with Trump’s reelection odds than on its own profit prospects, climbed 8.8% to $51.51 on Tuesday. It moved so sharply during the day that trading of the stock was briefly halted several times. The parent company of Trump’s Truth Social platform has been rallying since hitting a bottom of roughly $12 in late September.

Treasury yields eased a bit after paring gains from earlier in the day. The 10-year yield slipped to 4.25% from 4.28% late Monday, but it’s still well above the 3.60% level it was sitting at in the middle of last month. Treasury yields, like stocks, have historically tended to be shaky heading into an election day, only to calm afterward regardless of which party wins.

In stock markets abroad, indexes dipped in Europe after rising in much of Asia outside of a 1.1% drop for stocks in Shanghai.

Crude oil prices slipped after erasing earlier gains to compound their sharp 6.1% drop from the prior day. Brent crude, the international standard, fell 0.4%.

Choe writes for the Associated Press.