U.S. stocks are rising as investors try to brush off last week's losses

By Liz Moyer

Investing.com -- U.S. stocks were rising as investors tried to put the worse weekly performance of this year behind them.

At 10:30 ET (15:30 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 334 points or 1%, while the S&P 500 was up 1.1% and the NASDAQ Composite was up 1.3%.

Stocks sank on Friday after hotter-than-expected data on inflation. Investors are worried the Federal Reserve will keep rates higher for longer if it doesn't see evidence that successive interest rate hikes were doing their job to tame inflation.

While the S&P 500 had its third straight week of losses last week on rate worries, trading in futures on Monday morning showed some signs that investors were more hopeful.

Most investors expect the Fed will continue to raise rates at least another couple of times this year, starting with raises of a quarter of a percentage point each in March and May. The policymakers want to push the ultimate rate above 5.1%, which futures traders are betting will happen by the end of the summer.

But the question is how long rates will remain elevated until the Fed starts to cut again. Officials have indicated in recent days a pivot isn't in the cards at least this year.

Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) shares rose 5% after the EV manufacturer said its factory in Berlin was producing 4,000 electric vehicles a week, which puts it ahead of schedule. Tesla is scheduled to hold an investor day on Wednesday when it is expected to unveil its next-generation ideas.

Warren Buffett's conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway B (NYSE:BRKb) reported its highest ever annual operating profit, shrugging off the effect of foreign exchange and rising rates that dinged fourth quarter results.

Seagen Inc. (NASDAQ:SGEN) shares rose about 12% after a report that pharmaceutical giant Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) was in talks to acquire it for about $30 billion.

Union Pacific Corporation (NYSE:UNP) shares were up 9.9% after the railroad's CEO Lance Fritz announced plans to step down this year after pressure from an activist shareholder.

Oil was falling. Crude Oil WTI Futures was down 0.7% to $75.80 a barrel, while Brent Oil Futures crude was down 0.7% to $82.27 a barrel. Gold Futures rose 0.4% to $1,824.