us stocks edged up tuesday as the sp 500 and nasdaq composite each clinched fresh closing highs for the year the broad stockmarket benchmark gained 02 reaching its highest close since last august the techheavy nasdaq rose 04 to close at its highest level since april 2022 the dow jones industrial average ticked up less than 01 stocks have rebounded recently with the sp 500 within striking distance of exiting its longest bear market since the 1940s the broad index finished less than 10 points shy of entering a new bull market which would represent a 20 jump from its recent low set in october the rally has been powered primarily by a slim cohort of megacap technology stocks apple the most heavily weighted stock in the sp 500 is up 38 this year while nvidia has gained 165 as investors flock to ai plays “a lot of people like us are assessing the extent to which tech has led the broader rally and trying to see where we go from here” said scott duba chief investment officer and managing director of wealth management at prime capital investment advisors the major us stock indexes wavered between small gains and losses throughout the session reflecting muted trading action the stock market’s measure of volatility continued to drop the cboe volatility index or vix tracks the price of options often used as insurance against market declines also known as wall street’s fear gauge the vix traded below 14 on tuesday reaching its lowest intraday level since february 2020 “people are probably taking a bit of a pause ahead of the fed meeting” duba said the federal reserve is set to convene next week to discuss monetary policy and to issue its next interestrate decision federalfunds futures used by traders to wager on the course of interest rates reflected bets that the central bank will hold its target rate at 5 to 525 at the june policy meeting investors are also awaiting the may consumerprice index next week for the latest insights into the course of inflation which could influence whether the fed might raise hold or cut interest rates in future meetings goldman sachs group on tuesday lowered its expectations for an imminent us recession citing the resolution of the debtceiling standoff and a more modest impact from stress in the banking sector the firm cut its probability that the economy will enter a recession in the next 12 months back to 25 after raising it to 35 in march following the failure of silicon valley bank “you’ve got a situation where people are pricing out a recession and the growth side of the equation is looking a little better but we’ve had a big unwind of fed ratecut expectations for this year” said phillip colmar global strategist and partner at mrb partners financial stocks led the market with shares of regional banks recovering some losses from the spring’s selloff the kbw nasdaq regional banking index rose about 5 comerica fifth third and zions were among the top gainers in the sector shares of coinbase dropped 12 after the securities and exchange commission sued the crypto company for allegedly violating securities law the sec charged coinbase for operating as an unregistered brokerdealer a day after the regulators sued crypto exchange binance in the bond market the benchmark 10year us treasury yield ticked up to 3699 from 3691 monday elsewhere oil prices eased reversing the gains that came after saudi arabia said it would slash oil production by 1 million barrels a day brent crude fell about 05 to 7629 a barrel