S&P 500 Rises With Growth Stocks; JPMorgan a Drag

The S&P 500 briefly added to gains following the release of minutes from the September Federal Reserve policy meeting.

U.S. central bankers signaled they could start reducing crisis-era support for the economy in mid-November, though they remained divided over how much of a threat high inflation poses and how soon they may need to raise interest rates, the minutes showed.

Earlier, a Labor Department report showed consumer prices increased solidly in September, further strengthening the case for a Fed interest-rate hike.

Shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co fell and were among the biggest drags on the Dow and S&P 500 even though its third-quarter earnings beat expectations, helped by global dealmaking boom and release of more loan loss reserves.

The day’s corporate results kicked off third-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies.

“My hope is that as we work out way through earnings season that the forward-looking guidance will be good enough that we’ll close the year higher. But right now the market is in a show-me phase,” said Jim Awad, senior managing director at Clearstead Advisors LLC in New York.

Mega-caps growth names including Amazon.com Inc, Google-parent Alphabet and Microsoft Corp all rose.

According to preliminary data, the S&P 500 gained 14.20 points, or 0.33%, to end at 4,364.85 points, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 105.71 points, or 0.73%, to 14,571.64. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 4.35 points, or 0.01%, to 34,382.69.

BlackRock Inc also gained after the world’s largest money manager beat quarterly profit estimates as an improving economy helped boost its assets under management, driving up fee income.

Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley will report results on Thursday, while Goldman Sachs is due to report on Friday.

Analysts expect corporate America to report strong profit growth in the third quarter but worries have been mounting over how supply chain problems, labor shortages and higher energy prices might affect businesses emerging from the pandemic.

Among other stocks, Apple Inc dipped after a report said the iPhone marker was planning to cut production of its iPhone 13.

For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out our economic calendar.

(Additional reporting by Devik Jain and Bansari Mayur Kamdar in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur and David Gregorio)