US STOCKS-Nasdaq up 0.19% after Powell comments on inflation

Boeing made a statement about layoffs.

Dow was up 0.19%, S&P 500 up 0.58%, Nasdaq was up 0.89%.

Feb 7, Reuters - U.S. stocks gained in choppy trading on Tuesday as investors digested comments from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell about how long the fight to tame inflation might take.

He made comments after a strong jobs report last week stymied rising hopes of less aggressive monetary policy. Powell told the Economic Club of Washington that they didn't expect it to be so strong, referring to last Friday's non-farm payrolls report for January, but it shows why we think this will be a process that takes quite a bit of time. Powell believes that they are not going to be cutting rates anytime soon, but there is a good path, that they are accomplishing what they need to accomplish, said Shawn Cruz, head trading strategist at TD Ameritrade.

After Powell's remarks, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq fluctuated.

The Fed raised interest rates by 25 basis points last week, with markets now pricing in a peak rate above 5% after data showed the U.S. economy added jobs at a rapid pace in January.

Microsoft Corp., which helped boost the tech-heavy Nasdaq and the S&P 500, was the leader in the tech-heavy Nasdaq. The company's shares went up by 3.38% as it unveiled its integration of ChatGPT, a chatbot from OpenAI.

U.S. listed shares of Baidu Inc soared 11.43% as the Chinese search engine said it would conclude testing of its ChatGPT-style project Ernie Bot in March.

Six of the top 11 sectors of the S&P 500 fell, but technology was among the top gainers, up 1.61%.

Boeing is ranked 2.82% among the top gainers on the Dow Jones Industrial Average after the U.S. planemaker said it expects to cut about 2,000 white-collar jobs.

The belief that rates would stay higher for longer dragged the U.S. stock index down on Monday. All three major averages are in the black for 2023, with the Nasdaq adding 13%, led by a revival in battered mega-cap growth stocks.

More than half of the companies on the S&P 500 have reported quarterly earnings, with 69.1% of them beating expectations, according to Refinitiv. Analysts expect fourth-quarter earnings to decline by 3.1%.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 63.77 points, or 0.19%, at 2: 24 p.m. EST 1924 GMT. 79, the S&P 500 gained 23.72 points, or 0.58%, to 4,134. 8 and the Nasdaq Composite added 105.46 points, or 0.89%, to 11,992. DuPont De Nemours Inc jumped 6.88% on a higher than expected quarterly profit, supported by higher pricing for its products.

Bed Bath Beyond plunged 45.73% as the home-goods retailer seeks a $1 billion raise in a last-ditch effort to avoid bankruptcy.

The annual State of the Union address will be delivered on Tuesday by U.S. President Joe Biden to a joint session of Congress.