NEW YORK — U.S. stocks drifted to a slightly higher close ahead of a week with several top-tier reports on inflation due, as well as the Federal Reserve’s latest meeting on interest rates. The S&P 500 rose 0.3% Monday, topping the record it set last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.2%, and the Nasdaq composite ticked up 0.3%, also a setting an all-time high. Energy stocks rose as oil prices regained some of their sharp losses.
Diamond Offshore Drilling jumped 10.6% after Noble agreed to buy its rival in a cash-and-stock deal valued at roughly $1.6 billion. Noble added 6.2% in a signal that traders expect the combination to be a winner. Other stocks of energy producers also climbed as the price of crude oil recovered some of its sharp losses since the spring.
Data on the economy have come in mixed recently, and traders are hoping they will ultimately show a slowdown that stops short of a recession and is just right in magnitude. A cooldown would put less upward pressure on inflation, which could encourage the Federal Reserve to cut its main interest rate from its most punishing level in more than two decades.
In the meantime, companies benefiting from the AI boom are continuing to report big growth almost regardless of what the economy and interest rates are doing. At the end of the week will come a report showing how much inflation U.S. households are girding for in the future. The Federal Reserve closely watches the measure, hoping to avoid a vicious cycle where expectations for high inflation lead to behavior that causes even worse inflation.
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