{"id":161317,"date":"2025-08-20T14:35:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T14:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/161317\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T14:35:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T14:35:14","slug":"wall-street-holds-steadier-following-mixed-profit-reports-from-retailers-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/161317\/","title":{"rendered":"Wall Street holds steadier following mixed profit reports from retailers"},"content":{"rendered":"

By STAN CHOE, Associated Press Business Writer<\/strong><\/p>\n

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Wall Street is holding a bit steadier on Wednesday following the prior day\u2019s swoon<\/a> for Nvidia, Palantir and other darlings swept up in the mania around artificial-intelligence technology.<\/a><\/p>\n

The S&P 500 edged down by 0.1%, coming off its third straight loss after setting an all-time high<\/a> last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 83 points, or 0.2%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was down 0.4%.<\/p>\n

Mixed profit reports from big U.S. retailers helped keep the market in check. Lowe\u2019s<\/a> rose 2.8% after the home-improvement retailer delivered a profit for the latest quarter that topped analysts\u2019 expectations. It also said it agreed to buy Foundation Building Materials, a distributor of drywall, ceiling systems and other interior building products, for about $8.8 billion.<\/p>\n

TJX, the company behind the TJ Maxx and Marshalls stores, climbed 6.2% after beating analysts\u2019 forecasts for profit and revenue. It also raised its forecast for profit over its full fiscal year, while CEO Ernie Herrman said TJX is seeing \u201cstrong demand at each of our U.S. and international businesses\u201d and that its current quarter is off to a strong start.<\/p>\n

Target, meanwhile, tumbled 10.1% even though it edged past analysts\u2019 expectations for profit in the spring. The struggling retailer said that CEO Brian Cornell plans to step down<\/a> Feb. 1 and that an insider, 20-year veteran Michael Fiddelke, will replace him. He helped reenergize the company, but it has struggled to turn around weak sales in a more competitive post-COVID retail landscape.<\/p>\n

Estee Lauder dropped 2.3% after offering a forecast for profit this upcoming fiscal year that fell short of Wall Street\u2019s estimates. The beauty company said it expects tariffs to shave roughly $100 million off its upcoming earnings.<\/p>\n

La-Z-Boy sank 14.4% after the furniture maker\u2019s profit and revenue for the spring came up shy of analysts\u2019 expectations. CEO Melinda Whittington said it\u2019s contending with \u201csoft industry demand\u201d and that it\u2019s looking at potential alternatives \u201cto address financial pressure from non-core\u2019 parts\u201d of its business.<\/p>\n

Tech stocks were feeling pressure again, but not to the same degree as a day before. Nvidia slipped 0.9%, following its 3.5% drop on Tuesday. Palantir Technologies fell 2.1% to add to its 9.4% loss from the day before.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve been facing increasing criticism that their stock prices had shot too high, too fast amid the furor around AI and had become too expensive.<\/p>\n

The week\u2019s biggest news for Wall Street is likely arriving on Friday, when Federal Reserve<\/a> Chair Jerome Powell will give a highly anticipated speech in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The setting has been home to big policy announcements from the Fed in the past, and the hope on Wall Street is that Powell will hint that an interest rate cut is coming soon.<\/p>\n

The Fed has kept its main interest rate steady this year, primarily because of the fear of the possibility that President Donald Trump\u2019s tariffs <\/a> could push inflation<\/a> higher. But a surprisingly weak report <\/a> on job growth across the country may be superseding that.<\/p>\n

Treasury yields have come down sharply on expectations for coming cuts to interest rates, and the yield on the 10-year Treasury remained at 4.30%, where it was late Tuesday.<\/p>\n

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed across Europe and Asia.<\/p>\n

London\u2019s FTSE 100 rose 0.7% despite a report that said inflation in the U.K<\/a>. rose more than expected through July, in part due to soaring airfares and food prices.<\/p>\n

Tokyo\u2019s Nikkei 225 dropped 1.5% after Japan reported that its exports fell slightly more than expected in July, pressured by higher tariffs on goods shipped to the U.S. Imports also fell from a year ago.<\/p>\n

Hong Kong\u2019s Hang Seng added 0.2%. Shares that trade there of Chinese toy company Pop Mart International Group soared 12.5% after its CEO said its annual revenue could top $4 billion this year and announced the release of a mini version of its popular Labubu dolls.<\/a><\/p>\n

AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed.<\/p>\n

Originally Published: August 20, 2025 at 9:59 AM EDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By STAN CHOE, Associated Press Business Writer NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Wall Street is holding a bit steadier…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":161289,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,144,93484,17709,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,2274,10747,93483,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,3642],"class_list":{"0":"post-161317","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-dow-jones-industrial-average","10":"tag-lowes-earnings","11":"tag-nasdaq","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-city","14":"tag-newyork","15":"tag-newyorkcity","16":"tag-ny","17":"tag-nyc","18":"tag-sp-500","19":"tag-stock-market-today","20":"tag-target-earnings","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-usa","27":"tag-wall-street"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115061596030545659","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}