Wall Street drifts as earnings roll in, natural gas soars

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are drifting in mixed trading Monday, as worries about interest rates and inflation keep a lid on Wall Street despite some better-than-expected profit reports.

The S&P 500 was 0.2% higher, coming off its second straight week of losses. Like it, the other two major U.S. stock indexes also flipped between small gains and losses in the first hour of trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 54 points, or 0.2%, at 34,505, as of 10:30 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.3% higher.

Stocks have struggled this year as the highest inflation in generations forces the Federal Reserve into a U-turn on the low-interest-rate policies that helped markets soar and the economy to rev in recent years.

The central bank has already raised short-term rates once, and investors are expecting it to raise rates by double the usual amount in a couple weeks, with more likely on the way. The Fed is also preparing investors for a sharp reversal in its massive efforts to keep longer-term rates low.

That has the 10-year Treasury yield close to its highest level since 2018, at 2.83% on Monday morning. Higher yields put downward pressure on all kinds of investments, from gold to cryptocurrencies, and the stocks seen as the most expensive tend to get hit hardest.

That puts the spotlight on big technology and high-growth stocks, the ones that screamed highest through the pandemic. The Nasdaq, home to many such stocks, has lagged the rest of the market sharply this year. Smaller stocks also struggled Monday, with the Russell 2000 index down 0.6%.

Counterbalancing that was some encouragement following better-than-expected profit reports. Synchrony Financial jumped 3.8% after it said it earned more in the first three months of the year than Wall Street...