Home Depot leads Dow higher as Wall Street holds steady in summer lull

AP Photo/Richard DrewWall Street is holding steady on Tuesday, stuck in a summer lull

The retailer said owners have been focused on smaller, less expensive repairs while putting off bigger jects because of high interest rates and continuing concerns inflation

But it stood by its prior forecast for revenue and fit over the full year

Other big retailers will der their fit in coming days

Lowe’s and Target are on deck for Wednesday, while Walmart and Ross Stores will report on Thursday

The week’s ly headliner, though, will not arrive until Friday, which could keep trading on Wall Street relatively quiet until then

That’s when the chair of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, will give a highly anticipated speech in Jackson Hole, Wyoming

The setting has been to big policy announcements from the Fed in the past, and the hope on Wall Street is that Powell may give a hint that cuts to interest rates are coming soon

The Fed has been keeping its main interest rate steady this year, primarily because of the fear of the possibility that President Donald Trump’s tariffs could push inflation higher

But a surprisingly weak report on job growth across the country and worries the U.S. economy may be superseding that

Traders on Wall Street widely expect the Fed to cut interest rates at its next meeting in September

Treasury yields have come down notably in the bond market as a result, and they remained lower on Tuesday

Strategists at Bank of America, though, warn that Powell may not sound as inclined to cut interest rates as the market is expecting

He could remain non-committal and discuss the possibility of a worst-case scenario for the economy called “stagflation.” The Fed has no good tool to fix that situation, where the economy stagnates at the same time as inflation remains high

The cybersecurity company also gave forecasts for fit and revenue in its upcoming fiscal year that were above Wall Street’s

Tegna rose 4.8% after Nexstar Media Group said it will buy the owner of 64 television stations across the country for $22 per in cash, giving the deal a total value of $6.2 billion, including debt

The companies said combining will give them a broader reach and allow them to better compete with Big and legacy media

In stock abroad, indexes rose in Europe after falling modestly in Asia

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index slipped 0.4% as market heavyweight SoftBank Group Corp. fell 4% after it announced it was taking a $2 billion stake in U.S. chip maker Intel

Explore this year's list.