NEW YORK — U.S. stocks ticked higher on Wednesday to hit another all-time high. The S&P 500 rose 0.5 per cent and set a record for the third time in four days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged down by 10 points, or less than 0.1 per cent, and the Nasdaq composite gained 0.9 per cent. Tesla helped drive the market higher and rose five per cent after saying it delivered nearly 374,000 of its Model 3 and Model Y automobiles last quarter. That was better than analysts expected, though the electric-vehicle maker’s overall sales fell 13 per cent from a year earlier. Worries have been high that CEO Elon Musk’s involvement in politics is turning off potential Tesla buyers. Constellation Brands climbed 4.5 per cent despite reporting a weaker profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It pointed to slowing growth for jobs in the construction industry and other “4000 calorie+” sectors, which tends to hurt demand for its beer. But the company selling Modelo beer and Robert Mondavi wine nevertheless stuck with its financial forecasts for the full upcoming year. They helped offset a 40.4 per cent drop for Centene. The health care company withdrew its forecasts for profit this year after seeing data that suggests worse-than-expected sickness trends in many of the states where it does business. It was the worst day for the stock since its debut in 2001. All told, the S&P 500 rose 29.41 points to 6,227.42. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 10.52 to 44,484.42, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 190.24 to 20,393.13. In the bond market, Treasury yields were mixed ahead of a highly anticipated report on Thursday, which will show how many jobs U.S. employers created and destroyed last month. The widespread expectation is that they hired more people than they fired but that the pace of hiring slowed from May. A stunningly weak report released Wednesday morning raised worries that Thursday’s report may fall short. The data from ADP suggested that U.S. employers outside the government cut 33,000 jobs from their payrolls last month, when economists were expecting to see growth of 115,000 jobs. “Though layoffs continue to be rare, a hesitancy to hire and a reluctance to replace departing workers led to job losses last month,” according to Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP. The ADP report does not have a perfect track record predicting what the U.S. government’s more comprehensive jobs report will say each month. That preserves hope that Thursday’s data could be more encouraging. But a fear has been that uncertainty around President Donald Trump’s tariffs could cause employers to freeze their hiring. Many of Trump’s stiff proposed taxes on imports are currently on pause, and they’re scheduled to kick into effect in about a week. Unless Trump reaches deals with other countries to lower the tariffs, they could hurt the economy and worsen inflation. Trump said on Wednesday that he reached a deal with Vietnam, where U.S. products sold in the country will face zero tariffs and Vietnamese-made goods will face a U.S. tariff of 20 per cent. That helped companies that import lots of things from Vietnam, including Nike, whose stock rose 4.1 per cent. Factories in Vietnam made half of all Nike brand footwear in its fiscal year of 2024. Other factors could also be dragging on the job market, such as the U.S. government’s termination of protected status for 350,000 Venezuelans, potentially exposing them to deportation. That alone could create a drag on payrolls of 25,000 jobs, according to Goldman Sachs economist David Mericle, whose forecast for Thursday’s report is weaker than many of his peers. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.28 from 4.26 per cent late Tuesday. The two-year Treasury yield, which more closely tracks expectations for what the Federal Reserve will do with its overnight interest rate, held steady at 3.78 per cent. An unexpected weakening of the job market could push the Fed to cut interest rates in order to give the economy a boost. So far this year, the Fed has said it would rather wait to see how Trump’s tariffs affect the economy and inflation before cutting rates any further. Trump, meanwhile, has angrily been calling for cuts to rates to happen sooner. In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed as the deadline approaches for when Trump’s tariffs will come off their pause. France’s CAC 40 rose one per cent, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.6 per cent. But Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 0.6 per cent, and South Korea’s Kospi dropped 0.5 per cent. ___ Stan Choe, The Associated Press AP Writers Teresa Cerojano and Matt Ott contributed.
