Wall Street edges higher with data, Fed comments in focus
Goldman Sachs raises S&P 500 year-end target to 5,600 points
Evercore ISI hikes year-end S&P 500 target to 6,000 points
Autodesk up after report Starboard Value takes ~$500 mln stake
Indexes higher: Dow 0.04%, S&P 500 0.21%, Nasdaq 0.17%
Updated at 12:08 p.m. ET/1608 GMT
By Lisa Pauline Mattackal and Ankika Biswas
June 17 (Reuters) -Wall Street's main indexes edged higher in choppy trading on Monday, as investors awaited fresh economic data and comments from Federal Reserve officials for more clarity on monetary policy.
Apple AAPL.O and Microsoft MSFT.O helped arrest the losses with gains of 2.1% and 0.4%, while AI chip leader Nvidia NVDA.O retreated from a record high to fall 0.7%.
Some otherchip stocks rose though, briefly sending the Philadelphia SE Semiconductor index .SOX to an all-time high. Broadcom AVGO.O and U.S.-listed shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co TSM.N were up around 3% each, while Micron Technology MU.O jumped 3.5% after price-target raises by brokerages.
Technology .SPLRCT was the biggest gainer among the 11 S&P 500 sector indexes, while real estate.SPLRCR and utilities.SPLRCU led declines.
"Technology is not only leading, it continues to lead and does all the heavy lifting ... until we get to the next earnings cycle there isn't really a catalyst to lift the market," said Jay Woods, chief global strategist at Freedom Capital Markets.
"(This week) I suspect we'll see a little bit of a slowdown volume wise, because we've hit summer, there's no earnings and the mid-weekholiday."
Markets will be closed on Wednesday for the Juneteenth holiday.
Goldman Sachs raised its 2024 year-end target for the S&P 500 Index .SPX to 5,600 from 5,200 earlier, while Evercore ISI raised its year-end target for the benchmark index to 6,000 from 4,750.
Both brokerages pointed to strength in the technology sector and enthusiasm for artificial intelligence as reasons for their upgrades.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq .IXIC and the S&P 500 hit multiple all-time peaks in the previous week.
Markets are also keeping a close eye on upcoming comments from the New York Fed's John Williams, Philadelphia Fed's Patrick Harker and Fed Board Governor Lisa Cook later on Monday.
On the economic roster for the rest of the week are May retail sales data on Tuesday, with industrial production, housing starts and S&P flash PMI data among other key releases due later in the week.
Recent hawkish projections from the Federal have somewhat data pointing to growing weakness in the economy. The central bank dialed back their projections for three rate cuts in 2024 to just one on Wednesday.
However, markets still expect about two 25-basis-point cuts this year, according to LSEG data. The CME FedWatch tool FEDWATCH shows easing is still seen beginning at the September meeting.
At 12:08 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI was up 13.71 points, or 0.04%, at 38,602.87, the S&P 500 .SPX was up 10.43 points, or 0.19%, at 5,442.03, and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC was up 26.09 points, or 0.15%, at 17,714.97.
Autodesk ADSK.O jumped 5.6% after a report that activist investor Starboard Value had bought a roughly $500 million stake in the software maker.
Declining issues outnumbered advancers for a 1.44-to-1 ratio on the NYSE. Declining issues outnumbered advancers for a 1.73-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded 24 new 52-week highs and 6 new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 34 new highs and 168 new lows.
The Fed’s dot plot https://reut.rs/3Rqet91
Reporting by Lisa Mattackal and Ankika Biswas in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath
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