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 rebounded, as elections continued to cause swings 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%, as of 11:30 a.m. Eastern Time, and the Nasdaq Composite Index was up 0.3%.

Some of the strongest action in the world came across the Atlantic, where the CAC 40 index in Paris jumped as much as 2.8% before settling at a gain of 1.5%. The results in France suggest that a far-right political party may not win a decisive majority in the country’s legislative elections. That opens the door for France to avoid a worst-case scenario for financial markets, where such a victory could lead to policies that would significantly increase French government debt and other challenges.

This year will be an important election year around the world. Voters will go to the polls in the UK 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 Donald Trump's chances at 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 and financial companies, among other moves.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 4.47% from 4.39% last Friday and 4.29% late Thursday. That's a slight reversal of the general trend seen in the spring, when the yield on the 10-year Treasury note topped 4.70% in late April.

Yields have fallen largely on hopes that inflation will slow enough to convince the Federal Reserve to cut its main interest rate later this year from the highest level in more than two decades. High rates slow the U.S. economy by making it more expensive to borrow money for a home, car, or other asset.

Rate cut hopes grew stronger after a report Monday showed that U.S. manufacturing slowed more than economists had expected last month. Perhaps more important for Wall Street, the Institute for Supply Management report also showed that price increases are slowing, even as prices continue to rise. Taken together, the data could provide more evidence that the Fed wants to see less pressure on inflation before it cuts rates.

The highlight of the week in economic statistics will likely be Friday, when the U.S. government releases the number of workers hired in June. Economists expect total hiring to slow to 190,000 from 272,000 in May. That would put the figure closer to what Bank of America calls the Goldilocks number, or about 150,000, give or take 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, Keith Gill, revealed 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 rose to fame during the initial meme-stock craze of 2021 that saw GameStop soar to market-highs. Gill, who goes by Roaring Kitty and other nicknames, became the face of fans pushing GameStop higher. Gill had recently started talking about GameStop again, which helped its stock rally. But it fell 7.8% on Monday following his revelation about Chewy.

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

Boeing, which rose 2%, is facing stricter scrutiny from the government and airlines that buy its planes because of concerns about 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 of violating the bloc's new digital competition rules by forcing Facebook and Instagram users to choose between seeing ads or pay to avoid them.

In overseas stock markets, Japan's Nikkei 225 index gained 0.1% after a quarterly Bank of Japan survey, called tankan, showed a modest improvement in sentiment among the country's biggest manufacturers. April to June.

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

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AP writers Matt Ott and Zimo Zhong contributed.