Wall Street hovers near records as corporate earnings season kicks into high gear

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Markets were slow to gain traction early Tuesday as investors awaited a raft of the latest corporate earnings reports.

Futures for the S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq were all effectively unchanged before the bell.

General Motors jumped more than 9% after the automaker said it anticipates a smaller impact from tariffs and boosted its full-year adjusted earnings forecast. GM reduced its expectations for the full-year gross impact from tariffs to a range of $3.5 billion to $4.5 billion, down from the previous projection of $4 billion to $5 billion.

Shares of Coca-Cola rose 3.1% after the beverage giant beat Wall Street's sales and profit targets thanks largely to higher prices. Coke said case volumes were flat in North America and Latin America and down 1% in Asia, but rose 4% in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region. The company said it raised prices 6% during the quarter.

Netflix and Mattel report after the market close today, while Tesla reports Wednesday.

The pressure is on companies to show that their profits are growing following a torrid rally of 35% for the S&P 500 from a low in April. Companies face pressure to improve their profitability to counter fears that stock prices have gone too high.

Corporate earnings reports also have gained importance because they provide details on the strength of the U.S. economy when the U.S. government’s shutdown has delayed important economic updates. That’s making the job of the Federal Reserve more difficult, as it tries to decide whether high inflation or the slowing job market is the bigger issue for the economy.

Despite the shutdown, the Commerce Department will release its consumer prices report on Friday, which could help guide the Fed's interest rate policy. It's the government's first data release since the shutdown began on Oct. 1.

Shares in Europe and Asia were mostly higher, with Japan’s benchmark creeping closer to the symbolically important 50,000 level as conservative lawmaker Sanae Takaichi became the country’s first female prime minister.

Elsewhere, Germany's DAX ticked 0.2% higher, while the CAC 40 in Paris was up 0.5% at midday. Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.3%.

The Nikkei 225 in Tokyo gave up earlier, bigger gains after Takaichi prevailed in a vote in Japan's parliament, rising just 0.3% to 49,316.06. She is expected to support market-friendly policies such as low interest rates and more government spending.

The U.S. dollar rose to 151.95 Japanese yen from 150.75 yen. If Takaichi gets her way in slowing interest rate increases by the Bank of Japan, the yen may remain relatively weak against the dollar. That would hinder the central bank’s efforts to curb inflation, which now stands above its target rate of about 2%.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng added 0.7% to 26,027.55 and the Shanghai Composite index was up 1.4% at 3,916.33.

Expectations that U.S. President Donald Trump will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping later this month during a regional summit have raised hopes for an easing of trade tensions between the world's two biggest economies.

Chinese Communist Party leaders are meeting this week to set a policy blueprint for the next five years, but the outcome of those closed door talks is likely only to filter out over the coming weeks and months.

In South Korea, the Kospi gained 0.2% to 3,823.84, while Australia's S&P/ASX 200 climbed 0.7% to 9,094.70.

Taiwan's Taiex rose 0.2%.

In energy markets early Tuesday, U.S. benchmark crude oil rose 32 cents to $57.54 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, picked up 30 cents to $61.31 per barrel.

The euro slipped to $1.1619 from $1.1641.