Stock Market News Today: Markets hold onto slight gains; Disney slumps (SP500)

Wall Street on Tuesday has largely held up a small advance, helped by a rise in defensive stocks. Walt Disney (DIS) was in focus after the Dow 30 component delivered a surprise profit in its streaming business.

Market participants also received comments from Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari, one of the more hawkish Fed policymakers, who called last Friday’s jobs report “softer than expected but not soft” and said that the central bank was prepared to hike interest rates if needed.

The Nasdaq Composite (COMP:IND) rose 0.23% to 16,387.37 points in mid-day trade, while the benchmark S&P 500 (SP500) added 0.29% to 5,195.99 points. The blue-chip Dow (DJI) was up 0.08% to 38,882.95 points.

Of the 11 S&P sectors, nine were in the green. Defensive names Real Estate and Materials gained more than 1% each.

Treasury yields were lower. The longer-end 30-year (US30Y) and 10-year yields (US10Y) were both down 5 basis points each to 4.59% and 4.44%, respectively. The shorter-end more rate-sensitive 2-year yield (US2Y) was down 2 basis points to 4.82%.

See live data on how Treasury yields are doing across the curve at the Seeking Alpha bond page.

Markets are coming off a positive session on Monday, backing up a two-week win streak. Following a negative April, sentiment has been buoyed by an earlier and deeper-than-expected cut in the pace of quantitative tightening by the Fed, dovish comments by chair Jerome Powell and Friday’s nonfarm payrolls data.

“The April pullback bottomed on 4/19. The stock market is moving out of that consolidation & poised for an even steeper & broader run to secular top. Tech including semis will continue to perform as will industrials, homebuilders, financials, copper, steel, precious metals & lots more,” Contrarian macro strategist David Hunter said on X (formerly Twitter).

Kashkari, speaking at a conference organized by the Milken Institute, said that inflation appeared to have stalled and that though raising interest rates was “not most likely”, it couldn’t be ruled out. He remains concerned about the tick up in new lease rates.

GlobalFoundries (GFS) provided some support to the Nasdaq Composite (COMP:IND), after the semiconductor contract manufacturer said “pockets” of the industry was beginning to emerge from inventory correction.

Conversely, Datadog (DDOG) slumped and was the top Nasdaq (COMP:IND) percentage loser, despite strong results that were still deemed short of very high expectations. The cloud monitoring services provider also said its president Amit Agarwal would step down.

Disney (DIS) shed ~10%. The theme park and entertainment giant’s latest quarterly results showed a decline in revenue from its traditional television businesses, overshadowing a surprise profit turned in by its streaming platform. Still, the performance of the latter was noted by many, especially as the company had earlier promised Wall Street it would achieve profitability in streaming by September.

“Solid numbers out of Disney (DIS). Other than the poor performance of its Indian investments. Everything else on track for growth. Streamers will be profitable this year. I like it,” Ross Gerber, co-founder of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth & Investment Management, said on X.

Apple (AAPL) garnered some attention. The tech giant unveiled new iPads and an artificial intelligence focused chip.