Stocks Don't Much Budge Ahead of Retail Reports

Wall Street held near its record heights on Monday, with the S&P 500 barely budging, ahead of a week likely to be dominated by updates from the head of the Federal Reserve and from some of the biggest US retailers.

• The Dow fell 34.30 points, or 0.1%, to 44,911.82.
• The S&P 500 fell 0.65 points, or less than 0.1%, to 6,449.15.
• The Nasdaq rose 6.80 points, or less than 0.1%, to 21,629.77.

Novo Nordisk's stock that trades in the US rose 3.7% after the Danish company said American regulators approved its Wegovy drug as part of a treatment for a liver disease found in many overweight and obese people, the AP reports. Soho House, a membership club with locations around the world, jumped 14.9% after announcing a deal in which an investor group led by hotel-operator MCR would pay $9 in cash for its shares. Several of the country's largest retailers, meanwhile, were mixed ahead of their profit reports that are scheduled for later in the week. Home Depot, which will report on Tuesday, slipped 1.2%. Target rose 1.9% ahead of its report on Wednesday, and Walmart added 0.7% before its report on Thursday.

Those retailers, along with companies like Estee Lauder and Ross Stores, could offer a look at how different types of US households are holding up when the job market seems to have morphed into one in which relatively few workers are getting fired or hired. Just as a small group of wealthy households are separating from the rest, a handful of Big Tech companies are dominating the US stock market, in part because of a boom in spending around artificial intelligence technology. This separation of "haves" and "have nots" could be increasing the risk, with many companies potentially facing trouble if the economy stagnates and inflation is high, according to Lisa Shalett, chief investment officer at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management. The danger, Shalett said, is that investors could look at how much the broad S&P 500 index has surged since its low point in April and "extrapolate the success of the few to the gains of the many."