NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stock indices remained near their all-time highs on Monday.

The S&P 500 rose 0.3% in afternoon trading after posting its fifth week of gains in the past six weeks and fluctuated around its Record set on ThursdayThe Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 40 points or 0.1% from set his own record on FridayThe Nasdaq Composite was up 0.3% at 12:53 p.m. Eastern time.

Tesla led the way with a gain of 4.9%. The electric vehicle manufacturer has recovered all of its heavy losses from the beginning of the year. In April, it had lost as much as 42% at one point when it cut the prices of its cars to sluggish sales.

Financial markets soared following the Federal Reserve’s decision last week lowered the key interest rate by an unusually large amount for the first time in more than four years. The hope is that the further rate cuts will stimulate the US economy through lower interest rates on auto loans, mortgages and other loans. avoid a recession.

However, some critics say the Federal Reserve may be acting too late. Labor market is already slowing downand consider share prices to be too high.

A report Monday morning suggested that U.S. business activity is not growing as fast as economists expected, largely because of a continuing downturn in the manufacturing sector. S&P Global’s preliminary report said U.S. manufacturing contracted more in September than in August, hitting a 15-month low. Manufacturing is one of the areas of the economy most affected by high interest rates.

The overall numbers suggest that the U.S. economy is still growing at a healthy rate, said Chris Williamson, chief economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence. “But there are also warning signs, particularly regarding the dependence of growth on the services sector as manufacturing continues to decline, and the worrying decline in business confidence.”

He also pointed to subdued economic activity amid uncertainty ahead of the U.S. elections in November.

Several reports coming out this week could provide more context on the state of the U.S. economy. One on Thursday will provide the final reading for U.S. economic growth in the spring, and another on Friday will provide a snapshot of how much U.S. consumers are spending.

Such economic reports, especially on the labor market, are a top priority on Wall Street, because the biggest fear right now is a slowdown in the labor market. This is a marked difference from previous years, when most attention was focused on anything related to inflation.

But now that Inflation has fallen essentially from its peak two summers agothe Fed has shifted up a gear.

It sees less need to keep interest rates high to slow the economy enough to keep inflation under control. That’s why it cut its benchmark interest rate by half a percentage point last week. And it sees more pressure to support the labor market and the overall economy. That’s why it plans to cut interest rates further this year and next.

In the bond market, the yield on 10-year U.S. Treasury notes rose to 3.77 percent from 3.74 percent late Friday. The yield on two-year U.S. Treasury notes, which moves more on expectations of Fed action, remained at the same level as late Friday at 3.60 percent.

On the foreign stock markets, indices in Europe showed mixed figures after preliminary data suggested that economic activity in the euro zone is weaker than economists expected. The German DAX rose 0.6 percent, while the French CAC 40 was virtually unchanged.

Index movements were also subdued in Asia. In Shanghai, indices rose 0.4 percent, but in Hong Kong they fell 0.1 percent after the Chinese central bank cut its 14-day reverse repo rate on Monday. It had previously left key interest rates unchanged last week, although investors had expected a cut.

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AP writer Zimo Zhong contributed.