Stocks close mostly higher ahead of a wave of tech earnings

Traders
work on the floor of the NYSE in New York
Thomson Reuters

Stocks were mostly higher Monday as Wall Street shifted focus
from ongoing tensions surrounding the Trump administration to a
wave of tech earnings out this week. Financial stocks rallied,
with JPMorgan
gaining 1.9%. The dollar rose,
and the 10-year
Treasury yield jumped to its highest level in more than a
month.

Here’s the scoreboard:

Dow Jones industrial
average: 25,045.35 −12.77 (-0.051%)

S&P
500: 2,807.52 +5.69 (0.20%)

1. President Donald Trump and Iranian President Hassan
   Rouhani
   hurled ominous threats at one another. After
   Rouhani said in a speech that a conflict between Iran and the
   US would be the “mother of all wars,” Trump
   fired back on Twitter. He warned that if there are more
   threats, “YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW
   THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE.”
2. In a separate tweetstorm, the president lashed
   out at Amazon. He claimed again that the
   e-commerce company takes advantage of the US Postal Service and
   attacked the Washington Post, which is owned by Amazon CEO Jeff
   Bezos. The outburst came after
   a weekend of critical news reports on the White House and
   the Trump campaign.
3. US home sales dropped unexpectedly last month as a
   housing shortage
   sent prices soaring. Existing home sales fell
   0.6% in June, the National Association of Realtors said, to a
   seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 5.38 million units.
4. Tesla
   appears to have asked some of its suppliers for refunds in
   attempt to
   meet profitability goals. The Wall Street
   Journal reports that a memo sent to a supplier said the cash
   back would be “essential to Tesla’s continued operation.”

And a look at the upcoming economic calendar:

• The US trade representative holds a hearing on the pending
  $16 billion worth of tariffs on Chinese goods.
• Manufacturing activity numbers are out in the eurozone.
• Australian inflation data cross the wire.
• Alphabet reports after the bell; Facebook, Amazon and Twitter
  earnings are out later this week.

See also: 

This week is a rare ‘paradise’ for stock pickers and there’s a
simple way to cash in, according to Bank of America

Trump’s trade war is overshadowing another global battle that
could plunge markets into chaos

The world’s fastest-growing equities business has raided Credit
Suisse yet again for a senior hire

Get the latest Tesla stock price here.