Stocks – Techs Rise as Investors Wait for Fed Boss to Speak

Investing.com – Stocks offered up a day of gains for many tech stocks and a lot of waiting for Jerome Powell.

Powell, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, will start two days of testimony before Congress on Wednesday, and what everyone wants is a sense of whether the Fed really will cut interest rates this month.

As a result, the finished the day up 0.1%. The were off 0.1%, and the Nasdaq rose a semi-healthy 0.5%.

The issue for the and the was that a lot of big stocks that had hit recent highs were pulling back, including Verizon Communications (NYSE:), Procter & Gamble (NYSE:), and Coca-Cola (NYSE:).

Soft-drink-and-soda maker PepsiCo (NASDAQ:) shares slipped on the day after second-quarter results were better than expected.

Home-accessories retailer Bed Bath & Beyond (NASDAQ:) reports results after Wednesday’s close. The shares have had a roller-coaster ride this year to end the second quarter up 1% on the year. The shares fell 49% in 2018.

But big tech had a good day with gains for Apple (NASDAQ:), Amazon.com (NASDAQ:), Google parent Alphabet (NASDAQ:) and Facebook (NASDAQ:).

Oil prices were up slightly on the day, and nudged barely higher. The yield finished at 2.061%, up 1.3%.

Powell’s testimony will offer the first chance investors have had to hear his thinking after last week’s June jobs report, which showed non-farm payrolls rise by a surprising 224,000, larger than the expected 160,000. The report threw into question whether the domestic economy is slowing down, as the Fed has suggested for the last few months.

Winners and losers among stocks

Tech companies Twitter (NYSE:), Amazon.com (NASDAQ:) and Facebook (NASDAQ:) were among the top S&P 500 performers on the day.

Oil giant Chevron (NYSE:), Communications giant Verizon Communications (NYSE:) and American Airlines (NASDAQ:) were among the worst S&P 500 performers.

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