A calmer Wall Street holds relatively steady ahead of US jobs data

Stocks are holding relatively steady Tuesday, as Wall Street continues to find more calm following its tumultuous swings in March.

The S&P 500 was virtually unchanged in early trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was edging down by 44 points, or 0.1 per cent, at 33,556, as of 9:50 a.m. Eastern time, while the Nasdaq composite was 0.1 per cent lower.

Both the stock and bond markets have been steadying after swerving sharply through the first three months of the year. Many big questions still weigh on Wall Street, but the worst fears driven by the second- and third-largest US bank failures in history have abated following forceful actions by regulators around the world.

Investors are still split on whether the US economy will fall into a recession and how badly profits for companies are set to fall. The biggest question remains what the Federal Reserve will do next with interest rates after hiking them furiously over the last year to get high inflation under control.

A report ..