US stocks push further into record heights

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. stock market added to its record on Monday as Wall Street closed out a second straight winning month.

The S&P 500 rose 0.5% in its first trading after completing a stunning recovery from its springtime sell-off of roughly 20%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 275 points, or 0.6%, and the Nasdaq composite gained 0.5%.

Stocks got a boost after Canada said it’s rescinding a planned tax on U.S. technology firms and resuming talks on trade with the United States. On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump had said he was suspending talks with Canada because of his anger with the tax, which he called “a direct and blatant attack on our country.”

One of the main reasons U.S. stocks came back so quickly from their springtime swoon has been hope that Trump will reach deals with other countries to lower his stiff proposed tariffs. Otherwise, the fear is that trade wars could stifle the economy and send inflation higher.

Many of Trump’s announced tariffs are currently on pause, and they’re scheduled to kick back into effect in a little more than a week.

The U.S. stock market being back at a record high could actually raise the risk of renewed escalations on tariffs, according to strategists at Deutsche Bank led by Parag Thatte and Binky Chadha. They point to the pattern in 2018 and 2019 of rallies for the market prompting escalations for tariffs, which then drove the market lower and led to subsequent pullbacks on tariffs, which then sparked rallies again.

“Despite the rhetoric to the contrary, this dynamic looks alive and well,” the strategists wrote in a report. “In our view, beyond the market reaction, if negative impacts of tariffs on growth, earnings or inflation start to materialize, we will get further relents.”

On Wall Street, Oracle’s 4% rise was one of the strongest forces lifting the S&P 500. CEO Safra Catz said the tech giant “is off to a strong start” in its fiscal year and that it signed multiple large cloud services agreements, including one that could contribute over $30 billion in annual revenue two fiscal years from now.

GMS’ stock jumped 11.7% after the supplier of specialty building products said it agreed to sell itself to a Home Depot subsidiary in a deal that would pay $110.00 per share in cash. That would give it a total value of roughly $5.5 billion, including debt.

Less than two weeks ago, another company, QXO, said it was offering to buy GMS for $95.20 per share in cash. After the announcement of the Home Depot bid, QXO’s stock rose 3.9%, and Home Depot’s stock slipped 0.6%.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise rallied 11.1% and Juniper Networks climbed 8.4% after saying they had reached an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice that could clear the way for their merger go through, subject to court approval. HPE is trying to buy Juniper in a $14 billion deal.

Bank stocks were also solid after the Federal Reserve said on Friday that they are financially strong enough to survive a downturn in the economy. JPMorgan Chase climbed 1%, and Citigroup gained 0.9%.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 31.88 points to 6,204.95. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 275.50 to 44,094.77, and the Nasdaq composite gained 96.27 to 20,369.73.

In the bond market, Treasury yields fell ahead of several major economic reports later in the week. The highlight will be Thursday’s jobs report. It’s often the most anticipated economic data of each month, and it will come a day earlier than usual because of Friday's Fourth of July holiday.

The job market has remained relatively steady recently, even in the face of tariffs, but hiring has slowed. Economists expect Thursday’s data to show another step down in overall hiring, down to 115,000 jobs in June from 139,000 in May.

Such data has helped keep the Federal Reserve on hold this year when it comes to interest rates. Fed Chair Jerome Powell has said repeatedly that it’s waiting for more data to show how tariffs will affect the economy and inflation before resuming its cuts to interest rates. That’s because lower rates can fan inflation higher, along with giving the economy a boost.

Trump, meanwhile, has been pushing for more cuts to rates and for them to happen soon. Two of his appointees to the Fed have said recently they could consider cutting rates as soon as the Fed’s next meeting in less than a month.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.23% from 4.29% late Friday.

In stock markets abroad, indexes dipped modestly in Europe following a more mixed finish in Asia.

Stocks fell 0.9% in Hong Kong but rose 0.6% in Shanghai after China reported its factory activity improved slightly in June after Beijing and Washington agreed in May to postpone imposing higher tariffs on each others’ exports, though manufacturing remained in contraction.

AP Business Writer Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.

A tourist takes a picture in front of the New York Stock Exchange on Monday, June 30, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

A reflection of a window shows the New York Stock Exchange on Monday, June 30, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

A board above the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange shows the closing number for the S&P 500, Friday, June 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Currency traders watch monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), top left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, top center, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, June 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Trader Edward Curran works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Friday, June 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Currency traders work near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, June 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

A currency trader watches monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, June 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has affixed partisan plaques to the portraits of all U.S. commanders in chief, himself included, on his Presidential Walk of Fame at the White House, describing Joe Biden as “sleepy,” Barack Obama as “divisive” and Ronald Reagan as a fan of a young Trump.

The additions, first seen publicly Wednesday, mark Trump's latest effort to remake the White House in his own image, while flouting the protocols of how presidents treat their predecessors and doubling down on his determination to reshape how U.S. history is told.

“The plaques are eloquently written descriptions of each President and the legacy they left behind,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement describing the installation in the colonnade that runs from the West Wing to the residence. “As a student of history, many were written directly by the President himself.”

Indeed, the Trumpian flourishes include the president’s typical bombastic language and haphazard capitalization. They also highlight Trump's fraught relationships with his more recent predecessors.

An introductory plaque tells passersby that the exhibit was “conceived, built, and dedicated by President Donald J. Trump as a tribute to past Presidents, good, bad, and somewhere in the middle.”

Besides the Walk of Fame and its new plaques, Trump has adorned the Oval Office in gold and razed the East Wing in preparation for a massive ballroom. Separately, his administration has pushed for an examination of how Smithsonian exhibits present the nation’s history, and he is playing a strong hand in how the federal government will recognize the nation's 250th anniversary in 2026.

Here's a look at how Trump's colonnade exhibit tells the presidential story.

Joe Biden is still the only president in the display not to be recognized with a gilded portrait. Instead, Trump chose an autopen, reflecting his mockery of Biden’s age and assertions that Biden was not up to the job.

Biden, who defeated Trump in the 2020 election and dropped out of the 2024 election before their pending rematch, is introduced as “Sleepy Joe” and “by far, the worst President in American History” who “brought our Nation to the brink of destruction.”

Two plaques blast Biden for inflation and his energy and immigration policy, among other things. The text also blames Biden for Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine and asserts falsely that Biden was elected fraudulently.

Biden’s post-White House office had no comment on his plaque.

The 44th president is described as “a community organizer, one term Senator from Illinois, and one of the most divisive political figures in American History."

The plaque calls Obama's signature domestic achievement “the highly ineffective ‘Unaffordable Care Act."

And it notes that Trump nixed other major Obama achievements: “the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal ... and ”the one-side Paris Climate Accords."

An aide to Obama also declined comment.

George W. Bush, who notably did not speak to Trump when they were last together at former President Jimmy Carter's funeral, appears to win approval for creating the Department of Homeland Security and leading the nation after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

But the plaque decries that Bush “started wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, both of which should not have happened.”

An aide to Bush didn’t return a message seeking comment.

The 42nd president, once a friend of Trump's, gets faint praise for major crime legislation, an overhaul of the social safety net and balanced budgets.

But his plaque notes Clinton secured those achievements with a Republican Congress, the help of the 1990s “tech boom” and “despite the scandals that plagued his Presidency.”

Clinton's recognition describes the North American Free Trade Agreement, another of his major achievements, as “bad for the United States” and something Trump would “terminate” during his first presidency. (Trump actually renegotiated some terms with Mexico and Canada but did not scrap the fundamental deal.)

His plaque ends with the line: “In 2016, President Clinton's wife, Hillary, lost the Presidency to President Donald J. Trump!”

An aide to Clinton did not return a message seeking comment.

The broadsides dissipate the further back into history the plaques go.

Republican George H.W. Bush, who died during Trump's first term, is recognized for his lengthy resume before becoming president, along with legislation including the Clean Air Act and Americans With Disabilities Act — despite Trump's administration relaxing enforcement of both. The elder Bush's plaque does not note that he, not Clinton, first pushed the major trade law that became NAFTA.

Lyndon Johnson’s plaque credits the Texas Democrat for securing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 (seminal laws that Trump’s administration interprets differently than previous administrations). It correctly notes that discontent over Vietnam led to LBJ not seeking reelection in 1968.

Democrat John F. Kennedy, the uncle of Trump's health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is credited as a World War II “war hero” who later used “stirring rhetoric” as president in opposition to communism.

Republican Richard Nixon’s plaque states plainly that the Watergate scandal led to his resignation.

While Trump spared most deceased presidents of harsh criticism, he jabbed at one of his regular targets, the media — this time across multiple centuries: Andrew Jackson’s plaque says the seventh president was “unjustifiably treated unfairly by the Press, but not as viciously and unfairly as President Abraham Lincoln and President Donald J. Trump would, in the future, be.”

With two presidencies, Trump gets two displays. Each is full of praise and superlatives — “the Greatest Economy in the History of the World.” He calls his 2016 Electoral College margin of 304-227 a “landslide.”

Trump's second-term plaque notes his popular vote victory — something he did not achieve in 2016 — and concludes with “THE BEST IS YET TO COME.”

Meanwhile, the introductory plaque presumes Trump’s addition will be a White House fixture once he is no longer president: “The Presidential Walk of Fame will long live as a testament and tribute to the Greatness of America.”

Barrow reported from Atlanta.

New plaques of explanatory text have been placed underneath presidential portraits on the Colonnade at the White House, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

New plaques of explanatory text have been placed underneath presidential portraits on the Colonnade at the White House, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

New plaques of explanatory text have been placed underneath presidential portraits on the Colonnade at the White House, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

New plaques of explanatory text are seen beneath a framed portrait in the space for former President Joe Biden on the Presidential Walk of Fame on the Colonnade of the White House, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

New plaques of explanatory text have been placed underneath presidential portraits on the Colonnade at the White House, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)