NEW YORK — U.S. stocks drifted to more records Tuesday after Chinese stocks soared following a slew of moves by the Chinese central bank to prop up the world’s second-largest economy.
The S&P 500 rose 0.3% to set an all-time high for the 41st time this year. The movements were tentative, though, and the index wavered up and down following a weak report released in the morning on confidence among U.S. consumers.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 83 points, or 0.2%, to its own record set the day before, while the Nasdaq composite gained 0.6%.
Financial markets have been mostly ebullient after the Federal Reserve made a drastic turn last week in how it sets interest rates. It’s now lowering rates to make things easier for the U.S. economy after keeping them high for years in hopes of extinguishing high inflation.
One of the risks still hanging over the market is the struggling Chinese economy and how much its flagging growth may affect the rest of the world. After earlier delivering some modest and piecemeal moves, the chief of China’s central bank on Tuesday announced a broad set of changes to bolster its economy, including a reduction in the amount of reserves banks are required to keep.
Analysts called the coordinated moves encouraging, and they helped stocks soar in China. Indexes jumped 4.2% in Shanghai and 4.1% in Hong Kong. But questions still remain about how much they will help the economy, which has been struggling since Chinese authorities cracked down on excessive borrowing by property developers.
Prices climbed for crude oil and other commodities that a healthy Chinese economy would devour. Copper rose 3.3%.
Another risk hanging over Wall Street is the slowing U.S. job market. Now that inflation has eased substantially from its peak two summers ago, the main worry occupying investors is that a slowdown in hiring by U.S. companies may worsen.
A change in interest rates can take a notoriously long time to make their way fully through the economy, and the Federal Reserve kept its main interest rate at a two-decade high for more than a year before last week. It did cut by an unusually large amount in hopes of providing relief to the job market and economy.
AutoZone shares slipped 0.2% after the seller of auto replacement parts and accessories said a key measure of its sales performance among its U.S. stores barely grew during the latest quarter.
It was part of an underwhelming report where its profit and revenue both fell short of analysts’ expectations.
AutoZone said it’s continuing to see customers at its U.S. stores delay purchases of nonessentials.
Shares of another company that depends on the appetite of U.S. shoppers for non-essentials, Thor Industries, rose 6.1% following a mixed profit report. The maker of recreational vehicles reported better profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected, but it also gave a forecast for its upcoming fiscal year that sees the RV market continuing to be challenged.
“The talk of a softer market is beginning to sound like a broken record, but we remained focused on managing through it with increasing efficiency,” Chief Executive Officer Bob Martin said.
In the bond market, Treasury yields slipped following the weaker-than-expected report on consumer confidence. The 10-year yield fell from 3.75% to 3.73% late Monday. The two-year yield, which more closely tracks expectations for the Fed’s upcoming moves, fell from 3.59% to 3.53% late Monday.
Nvidia’s jump of 4% was the strongest force lifting the S&P 500 index Tuesday. The chip company’s stock had sunk 27% during the summer on worries that its price had risen too high in the frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology. But lower rates dampen that criticism by a bit, and Nvidia has been rallying since early August.
All told, the S&P 500 rose 14.36 points to 5,732.93. The Dow added 83.57 to 42,208.22, and the Nasdaq composite gained 100.25 to 18,074.52.
In stock markets abroad, indexes rose across much of Europe and Asia. France’s CAC 40 jumped 1.3%, South Korea’s Kospi rose 1.1% and Japan’s Nikkei 225 added 0.6%.
Information for this article was contributed by Elaine Kurtenbach and Matt Ott of The Associated Press.