Stock market today: Wall Street adds to gains as company profit reports come in strong

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is adding to its winning week following encouraging profit reports from big companies and more signs that inflation is continuing to slow. The S&P 500 was 0.5% higher in early trading Thursday and on pace for its seventh winning week in the last nine. The Dow rose 116 points, or 0.3%, and the Nasdaq composite was up 0.8%. Delta Air Lines rose 2.3% after reporting record profit and revenue for the latest quarter. The earnings reporting season is just getting underway. JPMorgan Chase and a big group of other banks will report their results on Friday.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

This week’s Wall Street rally appears ready to extend into Thursday with bellwether companies putting up impressive numbers for the second quarter despite fears of a pullback in spending by Americans.

Futures for the Dow Jones industrials rose 0.2% the S&P 500 ticked 0.3% higher before the bell.

Delta Air Lines jumped 4.6% after it reported unprecedented quarterly profit and revenue before the opening bell. The Atlanta carrier raised its expectations for a year after travelers took to the skies in huge numbers.

It was a similar story for PepsiCo, which raised its full-year forecast after second-quarter results handily topped Wall Street expectations. Shares rose more than 2% before the market opened.

Markets added to gains this week after the U.S. reported Wednesday that inflation cooled a bit more than expected, to 3% in June. That’s its lowest point since early 2021, thanks in part to easing prices for gasoline, airline fares, used cars and groceries.

Data on producer prices, the level of costs for goods before they reach the consumer, is due before the market opens Thursday.

High inflation has driven the Federal Reserve to jack up interest rates at a blistering pace. Higher rates undercut inflation by slowing the entire economy and hurting investment prices, and they’ve already caused damage to the banking, manufacturing and other industries.

Traders remain nearly convinced the Fed will raise the federal funds rate at its meeting in two weeks to a range of 5.25% to 5.50%, which would be its highest level since 2001. But expectations are also climbing for that to be the final increase after rates started last year at virtually zero.

In Europe at midday, France’s CAC 40 added 0.8%, Germany’s DAX rose 0.6% and Britain’s FTSE 100 gained 0.5%.

In Asia, Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 jumped 1.5% to finish at 32,419.33.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng surged 2.6% to 19,350.62, while the Shanghai Composite gained 1.3% to 3,236.48, even as China reported a slump in trade in June.

Chinese exports tumbled 12.4% in June from a year earlier as demand weakened after central banks raised interest rates to curb inflation even as Chinese leaders struggled to keep a post-COVID recovery from faltering. The customs data released Thursday showed imports slid 6.8%, while the trade surplus rose was $70.6 billion, rising from $65.8 billion in May.

“China will likely recover at some point, but we will unlikely see the Chinese growth put a severe pressure on commodity markets. That’s one good news for inflation watchers,” Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote Bank, said in a commentary.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 added 1.6% to 7,246.90. South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.6% to 2,591.23. The Bank of Korea left its policy rate unchanged at 3.50%, as expected, but noted that the risk of inflation was accelerating again.

In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude rose 10 cents to $75.85 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, gained 21 cents to $80.32 a barrel.

In currency trading, the U.S. dollar edged up to 138.57 Japanese yen from 138.33 yen. The euro cost $1.1178, up from $1.1128.

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AP Business Writer Zen Soo contributed. Kageyama reported from Tokyo; Ott reported from Silver Spring, Md.