Financial-Markets                      07/15 09:31

   

   NEW YORK (AP) -- U.S. stocks are drifting around their record levels in 
mixed trading on Tuesday.

   The S&P 500 was 0.1% higher and nearing its all-time high, which was set on 
Thursday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 167 points, or 0.4%, as of 
10:05 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.6% higher.

   Tech stocks led the way after Nvidia said the U.S. government has assured it 
that licenses will be granted for its H20 chip again and that deliveries will 
hopefully begin soon. Nvidia, which is Wall Street's most influential stock, 
rose 3.7%.

   Earlier this year, Nvidia had warned that U.S. restrictions on the chips 
used in artificial-intelligence development could chisel billions of dollars 
off its results for this fiscal year.

   Nvidia's announcement could also be an encouraging signal for trade talks 
between the world's two largest economies, as President Donald Trump threatens 
to impose stiff tariffs on exports from around the world unless countries open 
their economies up further to U.S. goods.

   Trump's tariffs may have been a factor behind the acceleration in inflation 
to 2.7% last month from 2.4% in May. But that wasn't far from what economists 
expected to see, and an underlying measure of inflation that economists think 
is a better predictor of future trends accelerated by less than feared.

   Altogether, the data caused Treasury yields to yo-yo a few times in the bond 
market, before they began rising.

   The yield on the 10-year Treasury climbed to 4.45% from 4.43% late Monday. 
The yield on the two-year Treasury, which more closely tracks expectations for 
what the Federal Reserve will do with short-term interest rates, rose to 3.94% 
from 3.90%.

   A further acceleration in inflation could tie the hands of the Fed because 
cuts to interest rates can give inflation more fuel, along with helping to give 
the economy a boost. Traders are still betting overwhelmingly that the Fed will 
cut its main interest rate at least once by the end of the year, but they 
pulled back bets on the number of potential cuts, compared with a day before, 
according to data from CME Group.

   On Wall Street, stocks of big U.S. banks were mixed following their latest 
profit reports.

   JPMorgan Chase fell 1.1% despite reporting a stronger profit than analysts 
expected, as CEO Jamie Dimon warned of risks to the economy because of tariffs 
and other concerns.

   Citigroup rose 0.8%, and Wells Fargo fell 4.8% following their profit 
reports, which also topped analysts' expectations.

   In stock markets abroad, indexes slipped modestly in Europe after a mixed 
session in Asia. Indexes rose 1.6% in Hong Kong but fell 0.4% in Shanghai after 
a report said China's economic growth slowed only slightly last quarter despite 
pressure from Trump's tariffs.

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   AP Business Writer Yuri Kageyama contributed.

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