Stock market today: Wall Street drifts after the rise in the French market following the election results

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks drifted lower Monday after the French market rallied, Elections continue to cause fluctuations in financial markets around the world.

The S&P 500 was virtually unchanged at midday as it kicked off a shortened four-day week that includes the July 4 holiday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 33 points, or 0.1%, at 11:30 a.m. ET, and the Nasdaq Composite Index was up 0.3%.

Some of the world's strongest action took place across the Atlantic, where the CAC 40 index in Paris jumped 2.8% before settling for a gain of 1.5%. The results from France suggested a Far-right political party may fail to secure decisive majority in the country's legislative elections. This opens the door for France to avoid the worst scenario for financial markets, where such a victory could result in policies that would significantly increase the French government's debt and other challenges.

It's a big year for elections around the world, with voters heading to the polls. UK polls later this week and soon elsewhere. In the United States, pollsters are measuring the fallout from last week's debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. All of this underscores political polarization and how elections determine the economy, rather than the other way around, according to Nick Gentle and others in the product management group at Barclays.

Trump Media & Technology Group, whose stock has been up and down depending on Trump's chances of winning the White House, rose 4.6% to $34.25. Shares of the company behind Trump's Truth Social platform, however, are still well below the level of around $70 reached earlier this year.

In the bond market, Treasury yields rose, as they did Friday immediately after the Biden-Trump debate. The increased prospects of a Republican victory in November sent traders back to the moves of 2016, according to Morgan Stanley strategists. In addition to pushing rates higher, traders also invested in stocks of oil and gas companies and financial companies, among other moves.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note climbed to 4.47%, up from 4.39% late Friday and 4.29% late Thursday. That represents a slight reversal of the broad trend since the spring, when the 10-year Treasury yield topped 4.70% in late April.

Yields have fallen sharply on hopes that inflation will slow enough to convince the Federal Reserve to lowered its main interest rate later this year, down from the highest level in more than two decades. High rates have been US economy slowdown by making it more expensive borrow for a housecar or something else.

Hopes for a rate cut strengthened after a report on Monday showed the U.S. Manufacturing sector weakened last month, more than economists had expected. Perhaps more importantly for Wall Street, the Institute for Supply Management report also indicates that price increases are slowing, even as prices continue to rise. Taken together, the data could offer more evidence of the easing inflation pressures the Federal Reserve wants before cutting rates.

This week's high point for economic reports will likely come on Friday, when the U.S. government announces how many workers were hired in June. Economists predict that overall hiring has slowed to 190,000 from 272,000 in May. That would bring the number closer to what Bank of America calls the Goldilocks figure of about 150,000, to about 25,000.

At this level, the U.S. economy could continue to grow and avoid a recession without being strong enough to put upward pressure on inflation.

On Wall Street, Chewy swung from a big initial gain to a 6.3% loss after a widely followed trader named Keith Gill disclosed that he owns just over 9 million shares of the pet supply company. That represents about 6.6% of the entire company, according to a filing Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Gill became famous during the the original stock meme craze of 2021 which saw GameStop rally market bending heights. Gill, who goes by Roaring Kitty and other nicknames, has become the face of the fans who have pushed GameStop ever higher. Gill had returned to talking about GameStop recently, which helped its shares rally. But it fell 7.8% on Monday following its Chewy revelation.

Elsewhere on Wall Street, Spirit AeroSystems rose 2.8% after Boeing announced it would buy the fuselage maker and other aircraft parts for $4.7 billion in stock and assumes about $3.6 billion of its debt.

Boeing, which rose 2%, faced difficulties government scrutiny and the airlines who buy its planes for fear of safety and quality. Boeing previously owned Spirit AeroSystems, and the purchase reverses a long-standing company strategy of outsourcing key work on its passenger planes.

Meta platforms fell 1.1% after European Union regulators accused it's about breaking the new blocks digital competition rules by forcing Facebook and Instagram users to choose between seeing ads or paying to avoid them.

On foreign stock markets, Japan's Nikkei 225 gained 0.1% after a quarterly survey The Bank of Japan's tankan showed a slight improvement in sentiment among the country's largest manufacturers between April and June.

Shanghai stocks rose 0.9% on mixed data from the world's second-largest economy.

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AP reporters Matt Ott and Zimo Zhong contributed to this report.