01:50 PM EDT, 07/21/2025 (MT Newswires) -- US benchmark equity indexes were higher after midday Monday as markets awaited earnings reports of some of the major companies, including Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) and Tesla (TSLA), due later in the week.

The Nasdaq Composite was up 0.8% at 21,053.5 intraday after closing at a record high Friday. The S&P 500 was up 0.6% at 6,334.5 intraday Monday, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.5% to 44,582.8. Among sectors, communication services paced the gainers, while energy saw the biggest drop.

Google ( GOOG ) parent Alphabet and electric vehicle maker Tesla are scheduled to report their latest quarterly financial results Wednesday. Coca-Cola (KO), Philip Morris International ( PM ) , IBM ( IBM ) , T-Mobile US ( TMUS ) , AT&T ( T ) , Honeywell International ( HON ) , and Intel ( INTC ) are also slated to report this week, along with others.

Some 12% of S&P 500 companies have logged quarterly results in the latest reporting cycle, with earnings up nearly 11% year over year on sales growth of 5.3%, Oppenheimer said in a Monday client note. Before the start of the quarter, bottom-up estimates from Forbes put analysts' projected earnings growth at 4.8%, according to the note.

In company news, Verizon Communications ( VZ ) shares were up 5.4% intraday Monday, the top gainer on the Dow and the S&P 500. The telecommunications giant raised the lower end of its full-year earnings growth outlook after logging better-than-expected second-quarter results.

Cleveland-Cliffs ( CLF ) shares jumped 13% after the steelmaker posted better-than-expected results for the second quarter driven by record steel shipments. The company said US President Donald Trump's tariffs are helping buoy domestic manufacturing.

Domino's Pizza (DPZ) reported fiscal second-quarter earnings below Wall Street's estimates as comparable sales growth in the US slowed down year over year. The company's shares were down 1.7%.

US Treasury yields were lower intraday, with the 10-year rate decreasing 7.1 basis points to 4.36% and the two-year rate dropping 2.7 basis points to 3.85%.

Implementing high tariff rates on the US' trading partners "will put more pressure on those countries to come with better agreements," CNBC reported Monday, citing US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

On Sunday, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick reportedly said Aug. 1 is a "hard deadline" for countries to start paying tariffs to the US.

West Texas Intermediate crude oil was down 0.2% at $67.18 a barrel intraday Monday. "Crude prices dipped slightly as the latest European sanctions on Russian oil are expected to have minimal impact on supplies," D.A. Davidson said in a client note.

Gold was up 1.5% at $3,409.7 per troy ounce, while silver jumped 2.3% to $39.34 per ounce.