Wall Street Stocks Steady; Oil Drops   06/06 10:11

   U.S. stocks are drifting Tuesday amid a vacuum of market-moving data, while 
U.S. regulators shook the cryptocurrency market again by filing charges against 
another mega player in the industry.

   NEW YORK (AP) -- U.S. stocks are drifting Tuesday amid a vacuum of 
market-moving data, while U.S. regulators shook the cryptocurrency market again 
by filing charges against another mega player in the industry.

   The S&P 500 was 0.1% lower in early trading, though it remains near the edge 
of what traders call a bull market. It's almost 20% above where it was in 
mid-October, as a long-predicted recession has yet to hit and excitement around 
artificial intelligence has helped a select group of stocks to soar.

   The Dow Jones Industrial Average was edging down by 34 points, or 0.1%, at 
33,527, as of 9:50 a.m. Eastern time, while the Nasdaq composite was 0.3% lower.

   This upcoming week has few top-tier economic reports and corporate earnings 
updates to help Wall Street answer its main question. It wants to know which 
could happen first: a recession or inflation falling enough to get the Federal 
Reserve to start cutting interest rates, which have climbed so high they've 
hurt various parts of the economy.

   That's why next week looms large. The U.S. government will publish its 
latest monthly updates on inflation, and the Federal Reserve will meet on 
interest-rate policy. The bet on Wall Street is that the Fed may hold off on 
hiking rates, which would be the first time that's happened in more than a 
year, but could resume raising rates in July.

   Some of the strongest action was in the cryptocurrency market, where prices 
were lower after the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Coinbase with 
operating its trading platform as an unregistered national securities exchange, 
broker and clearing agency.

   Shares of its parent, Coinbase Global, tumbled 15.9% after the SEC also 
accused it of being liable for some of Coinbase's violations. Other charges 
focused on Coinbase's staking-as-a-service program, where users get payments 
for their crypto almost like earning interest from a traditional bank savings 
account.

   A day earlier, the SEC filed 13 charges against another huge crypto trading 
platform, Binance, and its founder. The actions helped bitcoin drop to $25,653 
Tuesday morning, down a little more than 4% from 24 hours earlier. Bitcoin was 
above $27,000 on Sunday, according to CoinDesk.

   Elsewhere in markets, oil fell to give back brief gains driven by Saudi 
Arabia's announcement that it would cut production to boost crude's price. A 
barrel of U.S. crude dropped 1.5% to $71.07. Brent crude, the international 
standard sank 1.7% to $75.43.

   Both were close to $120 a year ago but have fallen amid worries about a 
strapped global economy's need for fuel.

   Oil's drop caused energy companies to fall to some of the steeper losses 
within the S&P 500. Hess fell 1%, and Devon Energy slipped 0.8%.

   In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed and making only modest moves 
across much of Europe.

   In Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 gained 0.9% after government data showed 
Japanese wages rose 1% over a year earlier in April but growth slowed from the 
previous month's 1.3%.

   Australia's S&P ASX 200 fell 1.2% to 7,129.60 Australia's central bank 
lifted its benchmark interest rate by 0.25 percentage points to 4.1% and warned 
further rises could follow. That came after inflation was stronger than 
expected at 6.8% in the January-March quarter.