Wall Street Rises Toward More Records as It Counts Down to a Rate Cut

NEW YORK (AP) -- Rising U.S. stocks are around their record levels Tuesday following mixed reports on the U.S. economy that did little to change Wall Street's expectations for a big incoming cut to interest rates.

The S&P 500 was 0.4% higher in early trading and just 0.2% below its all-time high set in July. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 116 points, or 0.3%, to its own record set the day before. The Nasdaq composite was up 0.7%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time.

Intel helped drive the market with a gain of 2.2% following a series of announcements, including an expansion of its partnership with Amazon Web Services to produce custom chips. Intel also detailed plans to build its foundry business.

Microsoft rose 1.8% after increasing its dividend by 10% and announcing a program to deliver up to another $60 billion to investors by buying back stock.

In the bond market, Treasury yields were holding relatively steady after a report showed U.S. shoppers spent more at retailers last month than expected. Such data has been under the spotlight recently because of worries that a slowing job market could ultimately drag the economy into a recession.

But while the surprise rise in U.S. retail sales was encouraging, details underneath the surface were perhaps less so. After ignoring automobiles and fuel, sales at U.S. retailers last month were a touch weaker than economists expected.

That left traders still split on what the Federal Reserve will do on Wednesday.

After keeping its main interest rate at a two-decade high in hopes of slowing the economy enough to stifle high inflation, the Fed looks set to deliver its first cut to rates in more than four years.

How much to cut rates by will be a delicate balancing act for the Fed. Lowering rates relieves pressure on the economy, which has already begun to slow, but it can also give inflation more fuel. Some critics say the Fed is already moving too late to help the economy, while others warn of inflation staying stubbornly higher than it has in the past.

Traders on Wall Street still say a larger-than-usual cut of half of a percentage point looks like the more likely case for Wednesday, according to data from CME Group. But they're still betting on a 35% probability for a traditional-sized move of a quarter of a percentage point,

"This data isn't going to decide the issue for the Fed, one way or the other," Chris Larkin, managing director, trading and investing, at E-Trade from Morgan Stanley, said about the retail sales data.

A separate report that came later in the morning said U.S. industrial production returned to growth in August and was stronger than economists expected.

The 10-year Treasury yield was holding steady at 3.62%, where it was late Monday. The two-year yield, which more closely tracks expectations for the Fed's actions, rose to 3.59% from 3.56%.

In stock markets abroad, Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 1% as the value the Japanese yen ticks higher against the U.S. dollar. The yen has been rising on expectations that the Bank of Japan will continue to head in the opposite direction of the Federal Reserve and keep raising interest rates. A stronger yen can hurt the profits of Japan's big exporters.

Stock indexes rose across much of Europe, while markets were closed in mainland China and South Korea.

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AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.

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