Wall Street is holding steady on Tuesday, stuck in a summer lull.
The week’s likely headliner, though, will not arrive until Friday, which could keep trading on Wall Street relatively quiet until then. That’s when the chair of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, will give a highly anticipated speech in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The setting has been home to big policy announcements from the Fed in the past, and the hope on Wall Street is that Powell may give a hint that cuts to interest rates are coming soon.
The Fed has been keeping its main interest rate steady this year, primarily because of the fear of the possibility that President Donald Trump’s tariffs could push inflation higher. But a surprisingly weak report on job growth across the country and worries about the U.S. economy may be superseding that.
Traders on Wall Street widely expect the Fed to cut interest rates at its next meeting in September. Treasury yields have come down notably in the bond market as a result, and they remained lower on Tuesday.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury slipped to 4.31% from 4.34% late Monday.
The companies said combining will give them a broader reach and allow them to better compete with Big Tech and legacy media.
Viking Therapeutics tumbled 39.7% after the biopharmaceutical company released results from a clinical trial of its oral tablet, which could treat obesity and other metabolic disorders.
In stock markets abroad, indexes rose in Europe after falling modestly in Asia.
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AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.
