Wall Street ends with modest gains as investors await economic reports

Wall Street stocks ended marginally up on Monday as investors sidestepped any meaningful moves following U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest tariff threats, and held steady ahead of a busy week of economic data and the start of earnings season.

Trump ramped up trade tensions over the weekend, vowing to slap a 30% tariff on most imports from the European Union and Mexico starting August 1 - leaving the clock ticking for last-minute trade deals.

The EU extended its pause on retaliatory measures until early August, holding out hope for a negotiated truce. The White House said talks with the EU, Canada and Mexico are still underway.

Despite the headlines, investor reaction was muted, having grown numb to Trump’s barrage of tariff threats and his frequent last-minute U-turns.

According to preliminary data, the S&P 500 (.SPX), gained 8.58 points, or 0.14%, to end at 6,268.33 points, while the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC), gained 53.66 points, or 0.27%, to 20,641.51. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI), rose 79.60 points, or 0.18%, to 44,451.11.

Markets have been buoyant in recent weeks even as Trump has rattled his tariff saber, with both the S&P 500 (.SPX), opens new tab and Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC), opens new tab hitting record highs last week.

“If anything is holding the market back, is the fact we’ve had a pretty good run since April,” said Jason Pride, chief of investment strategy & research at Glenmede.

He noted that despite initial fears that Trump’s tariff policy would hurt the U.S. economy, the levies unveiled so far and the passage of his signature economic legislation last week will broadly offset each other, meaning investors are starting to be more confident about the economy’s growth prospects.

Signs of how Trump’s policies are playing out will come this week, with a raft of new reports on the state of the U.S. economy due up.

Second-quarter earnings season kicks off on Tuesday, when several Wall Street banking heavyweights are set to report.

Tuesday is also the scheduled release of the latest consumer price data, which is expected to reveal an inflation uptick in June as sellers started passing on the cost of sweeping tariffs.

Wednesday’s producer and import price reports will offer fresh insight into how supply chain pressures are shaping up.

One place where Trump’s tariff rhetoric still moved markets was crude prices, with U.S. benchmark oil dropping 2.2% after he threatened levies on buyers of Russian exports, which may have knock-on effects on global energy supplies.

This pushed the energy index (.SPNY), opens new tab lower, and was the biggest decliner among the 11 S&P sectors.

Among the sectors in positive territory was communication services (.SPLRCL), helped by gains in Netflix (NFLX.O), which reports earnings on Thursday, and Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD.O), whose latest Superman caper had a strong opening weekend at the box office.

Investors are also monitoring tensions between the White House and the Federal Reserve, after economic adviser Kevin Hassett said over the weekend that Trump might have cause to fire Fed Chair Jerome Powell, citing cost overruns from the U.S. central bank’s headquarters renovation.

While traders have almost fully ruled out a July rate cut, the probability for a September move stands at around 60%, according to CME FedWatch.

Crypto stocks ticked up after Bitcoin topped $120,000 for the first time. Coinbase (COIN.O), rose, as did MicroStrategy (MSTR.O), opens new tab.

Waters Corp (WAT.N), dropped after the lab equipment maker agreed to merge with rival Becton, Dickinson and Company’s (BDX.N), Biosciences & Diagnostic Solutions unit in a $17.5 billion deal.