Stock Market Update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+0.2%), Nasdaq Composite (+0.5%), and DJIA (+0.2%) still hold on to the bulk of today's modest advance, though they now sit beneath earlier session highs.

While the communication services sector (-0.1%) sported a 0.7% gain earlier in the session, the sector now trades beneath its flatline. 

The sector's biggest laggards are telecom names such as T-Mobile US (TMUS 243.52, -9.24, -3.66%), Verizon (VZ 43.34, -1.04, -2.35%), and AT&T (T 28.90, -0.70, -2.35%), which trade lower after EchoStar's (SATS 79.46, +12.22, +18.17%) $17 billion spectrum sale to SpaceX.

SpaceX's acquisition of EchoStar's spectrum gives it the ability to offer direct-to-cell satellite services under the Starlink brand, bypassing traditional cell towers and potentially weakening the coverage advantages of the aforementioned telecom names. 

Separately, Alphabet (GOOG 234.48, -0.68, -0.29%) now faces a modest loss after advancing nearly 1.5% in the early going, though the stock's impressive rally after a favorable ruling in an antitrust case keeps its month-to-date gains at 10%.

Just released, consumer credit increased $16.0 billion in July (Briefing.com consensus: $10.5 billion), with the June reading downwardly revised to -$4.3 billion (from $7.4 billion).