On Wall Street, Tesla again helped boost the market and rose 6.5 per cent a day after reporting a milder drop in sales for the spring than analysts feared. It was one of the strongest forces pushing upward on the S&P 500, along with Nvidia. The darling of Wall Street’s rush into artificial-intelligence technology climbed 4.6 per cent to bring the chip company’s gain for the year so far to 159 per cent.

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The action was stronger in the bond market, where Treasury yields slid following a flurry of reports that came in weaker than expected on both the job market and US services companies. The data could keep the Federal Reserve on course to deliver the cuts to interest rates later this year that Wall Street desires.

One report said activity for businesses in the real estate, retail trade and other US services industries contracted in June for just the third time in 49 months. The reading was weaker than economists’ forecasts, which called for just a slowing of growth. Perhaps more importantly for Wall Street, the report from the Institute Supply Management also said prices were increasing at a slower pace.

That followed reports from earlier in the morning showing a slowing jobs market. One said slightly more US workers applied for unemployment benefits last week than economists expected, though the number remains low compared with history.