Stocks post modest gains as 3Q begins

President Trump says the U.S. is being treated unfairly on trade in part 2 of his interview with Maria Bartiromo on 'Sunday Morning Futures.'

U.S. stocks inched out modest gains on the first day of the third quarter after bouncing between gains and losses for most of the session.

Traders digested a new round of comments on tariffs from President Trump as well as what will be a shortened trading week. U.S. financial markets close at 1pm ET on Tuesday and will be closed for the July 4th holiday.

Ticker	Security	Last	Change	Change %
I:DJI	DOW JONES AVERAGES	44782	-128.65	-0.29%
SP500	S&P 500	6047.15	+14.77	+0.24%
I:COMP	NASDAQ COMPOSITE INDEX	19403.947849	+185.78	+0.97%

The Nasdaq led the gains, followed by the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average which saw some headwinds from General Electric, Walmart and Nike. The world's largest athletic apparel maker could get stung by a trade war, according to analysts.

Ticker	Security	Last	Change	Change %
GE	GE AEROSPACE	180.44	-1.72	-0.94%
WMT	WALMART INC.	92.64	+0.14	+0.15%
NKE	NIKE INC.	79.09	+0.72	+0.92%

Over the weekend, Trump told Maria Bartiromo in an interview on Fox News' Sunday Morning Futures, that auto tariffs were his biggest weapon to extract concessions from trading partners.

“You know, the cars are the big one,” said Trump. “We can talk steel, we talk everything. The big thing is cars.”

Concerning the European Union and trade, Trump said it is possibly as bad as China just smaller.

The European Union has warned the United States that imposing import tariffs on cars and car parts would harm its own automotive industry and likely lead to counter-measures by its trading partners on $294 billion of U.S. exports.

Economic data released Monday included a reading on the U.S. manufacturing sector. The Markit final U.S. manufacturing PMI for June came in at 55.4 versus the flash reading of 54.6 and May's 56.4. The Institute of Supply Management's June manufacturing PMI came in at 60.2 versus the expected 58.1. Construction spending was fractionally higher in May.

This will be a holiday shortened trading week as U.S. markets will be closed Wednesday for Independence Day.

Stocks rose on the final day of June, cementing a positive second quarter for all three major U.S. stock indexes.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 55.56 points to 24,271.61. The S&P 500 rose 2.07 points to 2,718.37. The Nasdaq Composite was up 6.62 points at 7,510.3.

For the week , the Dow fell 1.26%. The index has fallen 3 Weeks in a Row, Longest Losing Streak in More Than 2 Years.

As for the quarter, the Dow and S&P 500 rose 0.7% and 2.9%, respectively, to bounce back from losses suffered in the first three months of the year.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq has added 6.3%, its strongest three-month period of trading since the first quarter of 2017.

Commodities were mostly lower Monday, with oil flat trading around the $74 per barrel level.

FOX Business’ Ken Martin contributed to this article.