*
JPMorgan rises on plans to buy most of First Republic
assets
*
Fed expected to raise rates later this week
*
Indexes: Dow down 0.1%, S&P up 0.02%, Nasdaq down 0.1%
(Updates to late afternoon, adds NEW YORK dateline)
By Caroline Valetkevitch
NEW YORK May 1 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks were little
changed Monday afternoon as investors were cautious heading into
an expected interest rate hike this week by the Federal Reserve.
Shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co rose 2.5% after it won
a weekend auction of First Republic Bank . JPMorgan will
pay the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp $10.6 billion to
take control of most of the regional bank's assets.
The S&P 500 banks index was up 0.5%, but the KBW
regional banking index was down 2.2%.
Investors have been on edge about the banking system's
health following the collapse of two other regional banks in
March.
Recent earnings have provided some optimism. First-quarter results from S&P 500 companies have mostly beaten expectations, easing economic concerns. "We've had good earnings relative to expectations. Analysts for now have backed off of lowering estimates," said Tim Ghriskey, senior portfolio strategist at Ingalls & Snyder in New York. "If we could have rates at this level ... and corporate America continue to deliver, it's very positive."
The Fed, which has been raising rates to cool inflation, is
expected to hike rates an additional 25 basis points on
Wednesday.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 24.14 points,
or 0.07%, to 34,074.02, the S&P 500 gained 0.63 points,
or 0.02%, at 4,170.11 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped
17.06 points, or 0.14%, to 12,209.52.
Energy stocks fell along with crude oil prices .
But S&P 500 tech shares rose. Upbeat earnings from Alphabet
Inc , Microsoft Corp and Meta Platforms Inc helped the benchmark S&P 500 notch its second
consecutive month of gains on Friday.
Declining issues outnumbered advancers on the NYSE by a
1.30-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.17-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
The S&P 500 posted 35 new 52-week highs and one new low. The
Nasdaq Composite recorded 83 new highs and 149 new lows.
(Additional reporting by Ankika Biswas and Sruthi Shankar in
Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty, Shounak Dasgupta
and Richard Chang)
