Wall Street Today | Fed to inflict more pain on economy as it readies big rate hike

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says the U.S. isn't in a recession given the strong labor market and strong consumer spending trends even as economists brace for economic output data for the second quarter to be released later this week.
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So far this reporting season, shares of companies in the $S&P 500 Index(.SPX.US)$ that have missed Wall Street’s earnings expectations have slipped 0.1% on average in the two days before their report through the two days after, according to FactSet. That compares with the five-year average of a 2.4% decline.
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$Morgan Stanley(MS.US)$ said mortgages rose 30% in its wealth unit from a year earlier to $50 billion, while securities-backed and other loans grew 23% to $93 billion. At $Bank of America(BAC.US)$, wealth-management loans rose 12% from a year earlier to $222 billion, outpacing a 4% increase in the bank's consumer division.

Short sellers piled on to the $33 billion $Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund(XLE.US)$, the biggest ETF focused on large-cap U.S. energy stocks, as it rose along with the price of oil. But after the energy rally reversed, delivering profits to those betting against the ETF, traders closed out positions, cutting the number of shares sold short by 14% over the past 30 days, according to data compiled by S3 Partners.

$Tesla(TSLA.US)$ Inc. is trying to tap into public funding to build electric-vehicle chargers, as it moves to open some of its U.S. Supercharger network to EVs made by other manufacturers.

$Alphabet-A(GOOGL.US)$ has fired a software engineer who worked on the company's artificial intelligence development team over his public contention that he had conversations with a bot that had become "sentient."

Nearly 2,500 members of a union that represents three $Boeing(BA.US)$ Co. defense locations in the St. Louis area voted to reject the company's contract offer and plan to strike starting Aug. 1.

$Apple(AAPL.US)$ is set to report earnings this week. The company pitches itself as a health tech leader, and we have more details on the upcoming high-end Apple Watch. The economy is catching up with Apple Inc. For the first time in a while, the company seems to be vulnerable to outside factors like rising inflation, increasing interest rates, the surging US dollar and the threat of a recession.