Wall Street ticks higher to recover some of last week's tumble

New York, 24 Feb  — US stocks are drifting higher Monday and recovering some of their sharp losses from last week.

The S&P 500 was up 0.3% in early trading after several weaker-than-expected economic reports last week sent it tumbling 1.7% on Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 155 points, or 0.4%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.3% higher.

Berkshire Hathaway climbed 2.4% after Warren Buffett’s company reported a jumped in operating profits for the latest quarter. It also said over the weekend that it’s sitting on a mountain of $334.2 billion in cash. Such a large amount could indicate Buffett, who’s famous for buying when stock prices are low, may not see much worth buying in a market that critics say looks too expensive.

Starbucks ticked up by 0.6% after saying it would cut 1,100 corporate jobs and leave several hundred more positions unfilled as it tries to become a leaner operation under new CEO Brian Niccol.

They helped offset a 4.6% drop for Domino’s Pizza, which reported results for the latest quarter that just missed analysts’ expectations. Its international operations were a standout, but a closely tracked sales trend weakened for corporate-owned U.S. stores.

Big U.S. companies have broadly been reporting better profits for the last three months of 2024 than analysts expected, which is one of the main reasons the S&P 500 set a record before sliding at the end of last week. The pace of reports will slow this week, but several potentially market-moving updates are still on deck.

Chief among them is Nvidia, the company that’s soared to become one of Wall Street’s most influential stocks because of what had been nearly insatiable demand for its chips. Wednesday will be the the company’s first profit report since a Chinese upstart, DeepSeek, upended the artificial-intelligence industry by saying it was able to developed a large language model that can compete with big U.S. rivals without having to use the top-flight, most expensive chips.

Other big reports due this week include profit updates from Home Depot on Tuesday and Salesforce on Wednesday.

This upcoming week will also feature updates on consumer confidence and inflation, topics that are at the top of Wall Street’s agenda following last week’s slump.

Recent reports have shown that consumer sentiment is weakening as expectations for inflation worsen, in part because of tariffs and other policies pushed by President Donald Trump.

Stubbornly high inflation could prevent the Federal Reserve from delivering more relief for the economy and financial markets through lower interest rates.

The Fed has been holding its main interest rate steady after sharply cutting it through the end of last year. At their last policy meeting in January, Fed officials suggested they may stay on hold for a while given worries about how Trump’s proposed tariffs and mass deportations of migrants, along with other factors, could push upward on inflation.

While lower rates can boost the economy, they can also encourage spending that puts upward pressure on inflation.

In the bond market, Treasury yields were holding relatively steady ahead of the upcoming reports. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.44% from 4.43% late Friday.

In stock markets abroad, German stocks rose, and the DAX advanced 0.7% after political conservatives won an election dominated by concerns about Europe’s largest economy.

Indexes were lower across much of the rest of Europe and Asia, though the moves were generally modest. France’s CAC 40 slipped 0.5%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.6% and Japan’s market was closed for a holiday.