In the final session of the month and the first half of the year, U.S. stock indexes were mixed, with the Dow and S&P 500 nudging higher but the Nasdaq Composite dropping. According to Dow Jones statistics, the three major US market indexes are on course for their highest first half-year performance since 2019.

What are the results of stock benchmarks?
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.56% gained 131 points, or 0.4 percent, to 34,424.

The S&P 500 index SPX, +0.10 percent rose 2 points, or less than 0.1 percent, to 4,294, boosted by gains in the consumer staples XLP, +0.63 percent, discretionary XLY, +0.19 percent, and energy XLE, +1.17 percent sectors.

The Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, -0.15 percent was trading at 14,512, down 15 points or 0.1 percent.
The S&P 500 added 1.19 points, or less than 0.1 percent, to 4,291.80 on Tuesday, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 27.83 points, or 0.2 percent, to 14,528.33, its 19th record close of the year. The Dow closed at 34,292.29, up 9.02 points, or less than 0.1 percent. What is the market’s driving force? This week, the Dow was regaining lost ground, while the broader market took a break from a rally that has lifted equity indexes to all-time highs thanks to advances in technology and growth firms. With benchmark bond yields maintaining in a range for several weeks, the latest surge has been spurred in part by easing fears about the pace of inflation as the economy recovers from the COVID outbreak. Investors were digesting a monthly data on U.S. private-sector employment that indicated 692,000 jobs were gained in June early Wednesday, setting the stage for the Labor Department’s more carefully watched report on Friday. According to a consensus of expectations from economists surveyed by Dow Jones and MarketWatch, the United States created 550,000 private-sector jobs in June, after a 978,000 increase in May. According to the June data, the hotel industry hired the most people, with 332,000 new employees. Meanwhile, the May employment figure was decreased from the previously announced 978,000 to 882,000, making it the greatest month since September 2020. In an emailed statement on Wednesday, Mike Loewengart, director of investment strategy at E-Trade Financial, wrote, “The private-sector payrolls may have beaten the mark this month, but keep in mind it’s significantly lower than the downwardly revised total from May.” “We’re seeing signs of life when it comes to economies reopening across the country, with hospitality jobs making up for lost time and seeing the largest gains this month,” the strategist wrote. As investors strive to figure out how improvements in the job market can influence the Federal Reserve’s policy objectives, employment has become a prominent focus for markets. Late Tuesday, Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller told Bloomberg TV that the “unemployment rate would have to drop fairly substantially, or inflation would have to really continue at a very high rate, before we would take seriously a rate hike in 2022,” but that he is not ruling it out, adding that it is appropriate to think about scaling back the Fed’s monthly purchases of $120 billion. Separately, a trade group said Wednesday that a gauge of business conditions in the Chicago region rose at a slightly slower pace in June, one month after reaching its best level in 47 years. The Chicago Business Barometer, generally known as the Chicago PMI, dropped to 66.1 in June from 75.2 in May, the highest reading since December 1983. This is the lowest reading since February. Meanwhile, the National Association of Realtors announced Wednesday that pending home sales increased by 8% in May compared to April. MarketWatch polled economists, who predicted a 1% decline in pending home sales in May. The news comes after the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index revealed that prices rose at the quickest rate in history in April, as purchasers competed for a limited quantity of homes. The national home price index increased by 14.6 percent over the previous year, the greatest number in the more than 30 years of S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller statistics. In April, the independent 20-city index, which measures property prices in a set of key cities throughout the country, grew by 14.9 percent over the previous year, significantly above the 13.3 percent gain recorded the month before. Which businesses are being scrutinized?
People did not buy as much food for the home as they did in the early days of the pandemic, causing General Mills Inc. GIS to see a reduction in sales and earnings in the most recent quarter.

The initial public offering of Xometry Inc. XMTR, an AI-driven marketplace for on-demand manufacturing, was priced at $44 per share, above the intended price range of $38 to $42.

LegalZoom.com Inc. (LZ) priced its initial public offering at $28 per share on Wednesday, exceeding its intended price range of $24 to $27 per share.

Wow Internet, Cable, and Phone is a broadband provider.

WOW announced on Wednesday that it had signed two agreements to sell five service areas for $1.8 billion.

Torrid Holdings Inc. CURV, a direct-to-consumer plus-size women’s clothing retailer, increased its proposed initial public offering to 10 million shares priced at $18 to $21 each on Wednesday, up from an earlier intention of 8 million shares.

After the Chinese coffee purveyor revealed its corrected fourth-quarter 2019 financial results, Luckin Coffee Inc. LKNCY stock soared in Wednesday trading.

According to a report published Monday in the medical journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases, a Phase 1/2 clinical trial of Sinovac Biotech Ltd. SVA’s COVID-19 vaccination in children and adolescents aged 3 to 17 showed that the shot is safe and produces a high antibody response.

ConocoPhillips COP announced on Wednesday that it is increasing its share buyback program for 2021 by $1 billion, bringing its total planned dividends to shareholders for the year to $6 billion, or 7% of its current market capitalization.
What about your other assets? How are they doing?
TMUBMUSD10Y TMUBMUSD10Y TMUBMUSD10Y TMUBMUSD10Y TMUBMUSD10Y TMUBMUSD10Y TMUBMUSD10Y TMUBMUSD10Y TMUBMUSD10Y TMUBMUSD10Y T The yield curve and the price of debt move in opposite directions.

The ICE U.S. Dollar Index DXY, which compares the greenback to a basket of six major currencies, was up 0.3 percent.

Oil futures were up 0.7 percent at $73.49 a barrel, with the US benchmark CL00 up 0.7 percent. Gold futures GC00 were trading at $1,755.80 an ounce, down 0.4 percent.

The Stoxx 600 SXXP, a pan-European stock index, was down 0.5 percent, while the FTSE 100 UKX, -0.71 percent, in London was also down 0.5 percent.

In Asia, the Shanghai Composite SHCOMP rose 0.5 percent, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index HSI fell 0.6 percent, and Japan’s Nikkei 225 NIK fell less than 0.1 percent./nRead More