NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is steadying on Wednesday as Alphabet and other technology stocks rise.
The S&P 500 added 0.5% and was on track to break its since setting . The Dow Jones Industrial Average was edging down by 3 points, or less than 0.1%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.8% higher.
Google’s parent company climbed 7.1% and was one of the strongest forces lifting the market after in its antitrust case. A federal judge on Tuesday ordered a shake-up of Google’s search engine but did not force a sale of its Chrome browser, for example.
Because Alphabet is one of Wall Street’s most valuable companies, its stock movements carry more weight on the S&P 500 and other indexes than the typical company’s.
Also helping to steady Wall Street was a calming bond market. A day earlier, rising yields for government bonds around the world raised the pressure on the stock market. Yields climbed on worries about governments’ abilities to repay their growing mountains of debt, as well as concerns that to cut short-term interest rates could lead to higher inflation in the long term.
Such worries have pushed investors to demand higher yields in order to lend money to governments worldwide. And when bonds are paying more in interest, investors are less likely to pay high prices for stocks, which are riskier investments.
On Wednesday, Treasury yields slowed their ascent. The 10-year Treasury yield dipped to 4.26% from 4.28% late Tuesday, for example.
Trading on Wall Street was mixed outside of tech stocks, which benefited from the Alphabet ruling. Apple rose 2.6%, as analysts said the ruling will still allow it to sign lucrative search deals with Google.
jumped 19.6% for one of the market’s bigger gains after the retailer reported stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The owner of Bloomingdale’s delivered the best growth in an important measure of sales in three years, and it also raised its forecasts for sales and profit this fiscal year.
On the losing end of Wall Street was Dollar Tree, even though the retailer reported better profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. A chunk of its stronger-than-expected performance came because of the timing of tariffs, which could drag down its results in the current quarter.
Analysts also said expectations were high for the value retailer coming into its report. Its stock fell 9.7%, slicing into its gain for the year that came into the day at a stellar 48.6%.
In stock markets abroad, European indexes ticked higher following a weaker finish across much of Asia.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 0.9% amid uncertainty about the political future of Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.
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AP Business Writer Yuri Kageyama contributed.
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