us stocks traded mostly higher monday ahead of crucial inflation and the start of secondquarter earnings season on hopes that the fed might soon be done with its interestrate hikes on friday the dow jones industrial average fell 187 points or 055 to 33735 the sp 500 declined 13 points or 029 to 4399 and the nasdaq composite dropped 18 points or 013 to 13661 stocks are pointing to a positive start of the week after the sp 500 shed 12 last week as relatively robust economic data pushed bond yields toward cycle highs consequently consumer price index data due on wednesday will be firmly in focus for traders analysts noted due wednesday us inflation is expected to have fallen from 4 to around 3 in june with a possible uptick in the monthly data but core inflation could prove stickier at around the 5 mark said ipek ozkardeskaya senior analyst at swissquote bank in all cases softening and ideally softerthanexpected inflation figures carry the potential of pushing the fed hawks back that could give quick support to the us stocks which ended the first week of july and the first week of h2 in the negative she added louis navellier chairman and founder at navellier  associates said he is more confident than ever that after this week the fed will decisively hit the pause button due to favorable inflation evidence as well as the labor departments lackluster payroll data in us economic data wholesale inventories in the us were unchanged in may following a decline in the prior month indicating businesses are producing or stockpiling fewer goods due to an uncertain economy another factor for traders to consider is the secondquarter us corporate earnings season which will kick into gear on friday when big banks such as jpmorgan chase jpm citigroup c and wells fargo wfc present their numbers profits for the sp 500 are forecast to fall 64 though strip out the energy sector and the drop is just 07 according to refinitiv there will be an outsized focus on ai given the moves in tech this year said stephen innes managing partner at spi asset management still the timing and ability of sp 500 companies to generate incremental profits from ai remain uncertain so management guidance and commentary will help investors identify ais enablers scalers and longterm beneficiaries innes added there will be a number of fed officials making comments including fed vice chair barr at 10 am san francisco fed president daly and cleveland fed president mester at 11 am this content was created by marketwatch which is operated by dow jones  co marketwatch is published independently from dow jones newswires and the wall street journal