U.S. stock indexes are holding near their record heights. The S&P 500 was flat in early trading Tuesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 110 points, and the Nasdaq composite was little changed. All three indexes are coming off their latest all-time highs set the day before.

AutoZone slipped after reporting a weaker profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Boeing rose after announcing an order for its Dreamliner airplanes by Uzbekistan’s flag carrier. Gold continued its record-breaking rally. It has soared even more than the U.S. stock market so far this year.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is scheduled to speak at 12:35 p.m. at the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce’s economic luncheon in Warwick, Rhode Island, and his comments could be crucial to shaping interest rate expectations at a time when traders are weighing conflicting signals from the Fed, with some officials arguing for measured cuts going forward to keep inflation in check.

Newly appointed Fed Governor Stephen Miran, however, said on Monday that the central bank risks over-tightening and harming the labor market if it holds back, highlighting the tightrope the Fed faces in balancing inflation against labor market pressures.

"We don't really just have a clean recovery path from the inflation highs of 2022, because we've gotten the shock of tariffs that are basically occurring right when you would have expected to be getting closer to that 2% target," said Michael Reynolds, vice president, investment strategy at Glenmede.

"Right now, it seems like it's the labor market that has the greater risk."

A September reading of S&P Global's flash manufacturing PMI is due after markets open. Comments from Fed Governor Michelle Bowman and Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic will also be parsed.

Wall Street has rallied so far in September, a historically weak month for equities, with the S&P 500 index recording a 3.6% lift as tenacious traders navigate uncertainties around President Donald Trump's policies.

Part of the resilience can be traced to strength in technology stocks and renewed optimism around artificial intelligence-linked trading. Some analysts have, however, raised concerns of stretched stock valuations.

Nvidia slipped 0.7% in premarket trading on Tuesday after hitting an intraday record high in the previous session. The AI chip leader agreed to a tie-up with OpenAI to invest up to $100 billion in and supply it with data center chips.

Investors will also be watching for potential disruptions from H-1B visa regulations, particularly in U.S. technology companies that rely heavily on skilled workers from India and China. So far, mega-cap stocks have largely shrugged off those worries.

Kenvue, the maker of Tylenol that was spun off from Johnson & Johnson in 2023, rose nearly 6% premarket, rebounding from a 7.5% plunge that made it the top laggard on the S&P 500 index on Monday.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday linked autism to childhood vaccine use and the taking of popular pain medication Tylenol by women when pregnant.

Boeing gained 2.5% before the bell after securing an order from Uzbekistan Airways worth over $8 billion, while talks for a Chinese order were ongoing.

ACM Research gained 5.4% as the semiconductor equipment firm is set to join the small-cap S&P 600 index.