On Tuesday, U.S. stocks saw modest gains: the S&P 500 and Nasdaq each rose by 0.1%, while the Dow increased by 140 points. Investors digested fresh data and evaluated the state of the U.S. economy and the future course of interest rates. The number of open job vacancies reported by JOLTS dropped significantly more than expected, to 8.059 million, marking the lowest level since February 2021, indicating a cooling labor market. Meanwhile, factory orders grew slightly more than anticipated, although the ISM Manufacturing PMI released yesterday showed unexpected weakness in the manufacturing sector. The real estate and basic consumer goods sectors saw the most growth, while energy and raw materials were the laggards. Shares of Walmart and Costco fell by more than 1.1%, and Exxon Mobil and Chevron lost 1.5% and 0.9%, respectively, after oil prices hit a four-month low. Among the megacaps, Microsoft (+0.6%), Amazon (+0.5%), Alphabet (+0.3%), and Apple (+0.1%) saw slight increases, Nvidia was up 1.2%, while Meta fell by 0.1%.