Wall Street inched a tad higher early Monday as markets look ahead to what most expect will be an interest rate cut by the U.S. Federal Reserve later this week.

Futures for the S&P 500 and Dow Jones industrials each ticked up 0.2% before the bell, while futures for the Nasdaq were up just 0.1%.

Nvidia dipped 1.5% in premarket after China accused the company of violating the country’s antimonopoly laws. China said it would step up scrutiny of the world’s leading chipmaker, escalating tensions with Washington as the two countries hold trade talks this week.

Chinese regulators said a preliminary investigation found that Nvidia didn’t comply with conditions imposed for its $6.9 billion purchase of Mellanox Technologies, a network and data transmission company. The one-sentence statement from Chinese regulators didn’t mention punishment, but said it would carry out “further investigation.”

Tesla shares climbed 8.5% after CEO Elon Musk disclosed the purchase of more than 2.5 million shares worth approximately $1 billion.

Musk purchased various amounts of shares at different prices on Friday, according to a regulatory filing. Markets tend to view such insider purchases as the confidence in the company’s future.

With earnings season effectively wrapped up, investors are looking ahead to Wednesday, when the Federal Reserve is widely expected to cut its benchmark interest rate for the first time this year, despite inflation that remains above the central bank’s 2% target.

Even as prices remain high, Fed officials have publicly acknowledged that a slowing labor market is now their biggest concern. That’s what is primarily driving market optimism for a rate cut this week.

The central bank will also release its quarterly economic projections Wednesday, and economists forecast that they will show one or two additional cuts this year followed by several more next year.

Also coming this week is the latest government data on retail sales, which will give a glimpse into whether Americans are still spending freely against the headwinds of still-elevated inflation and a weakening job market..

Elsewhere, in Europe at midday, France’s CAC 40 jumped 1.2%, while the German DAX gained 0.5%. Britain’s FTSE 100 was unchanged.

In Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng added 0.2% to 26,446.56. The Shanghai Composite edged down 0.3% to 3,860.50.

Worries are simmering about China’s economy, as analysts say the data for August aren’t strong enough to reflect ongoing dynamic growth, especially given the damage from U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff policies.

“China’s economy continued to slide in August, with all key activity readings falling short of market forecasts once more,” Lynn Song of ING Economics said in a report.

“Given the slowdown of the past few months, we expect that there’s a strong case for additional short-term stimulus efforts,”

China’s industrial production grew 5.2%, a 12-month low that was down from 5.7% in July and 6.8% in June. Retail sales rose 3.4%, the slowest pace since last November.

“The underlying flow is shifting. For years, Beijing leaned on exports as the carry trade that kept growth rolling even as property cracked. But with Trump’s tariffs slicing through supply chains, that leg of the trade is gone,” said Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.1% to 8,853.00, while South Korea’s Kospi gained 0.4% to 3,407.31. Stock trading was closed Monday for a national holiday in Japan.

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Associated Press writer Ken Moritsugu in Beijing contributed to this report.

NEW YORK — A “click-to-cancel” rule, which would have made it easier for consumers to end unwanted subscriptions, has been blocked by a federal appeals court days before it was set to go into effect. But there are ways to end those subscriptions and memberships, even if they take some work.

The rule would also have required companies to disclose when free trials and promotional offers would end and let customers cancel recurring subscriptions as easily as they started them. But even without the new federal guidance, here are some ways to stay on top of subscription and membership fees.

Experts at the Consumer Federation of America recommend setting calendar reminders for whenever a free trial period ends, to alert yourself to cancel promotional offers before the real recurring costs kick in. The auto-enrollment process, in which the company does not remind the consumer via email that a trial is about to end and higher monthly payments will begin, was also at the heart of the FTC’s rule.

“No subscription business model should be structured to profit from a gauntlet-style cancellation process,” said Erin Witte, Director of Consumer Protection for the Consumer Federation of America, in a statement on the click-to-cancel rule.

Regularly reviewing your credit card and debit card bills can also help you keep track of any recurring charges — including price increases you may have missed or that you didn’t anticipate when trying out a new membership or subscription.

“Companies make it easy for consumers to click to sign up and easy for the companies to automatically withdraw funds from consumers’ accounts,” said Shennan Kavanagh, Director of Litigation at the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) in a statement on the FTC’s click-to-cancel rule. “People should not (have to) spend months trying to cancel unwanted subscriptions.”

Given the FTC’s vacated rule, though, companies may still legally require that customers cancel memberships or subscriptions by phone, even as they permit signing up, enrolling, and paying bills online. Consumer advocates say this places an extra burden of time and energy on the consumer to stop an unwanted recurring fee, but sometimes knowing the terms of the subscription and getting on the phone is worth the trouble.

Apps like Rocket Money and services like Trim, which is accessed through a browser, can keep track of your recurring monthly fees and subscriptions, for free — or for a fee — and can help you catch new ones or even unsubscribe from some services.

For parents, especially, a service like Trim could help inform them that a child has started a new subscription, game or membership before the fees recur. And Rocket Money will actively work to end unwanted subscriptions for you, for a monthly price. If the company can’t successfully end or cancel the subscription or membership, it will give the customer the information needed to do so. Trim also provides this service, in its premium form, for an additional fee.

The FTC is currently moving forward with preparations for a trial involving Amazon’s Prime program, which accuses the retailer of enrolling consumers in its Prime program without their consent and making it difficult to cancel subscriptions.

Often, when a consumer tries to cancel a subscription for something like Prime, which offers free delivery and streaming video, the company will offer a month or more of the subscription at a promotional rate — half off, or at other, better-seeming values, to entice a customer to stay. Staying strong in the face of what may appear to be a good deal can help you stop recurring monthly fees before you forget to cancel them again.

Agreeing to yet another trial or promotional rate, which is another on-ramp to auto-enrollment, just continues the cycle, according to consumer advocates.

The FTC’s rule would have required businesses to obtain a customer’s consent before charging for memberships, auto-renewals and programs linked to free trials. The businesses would have also had to disclose when free trials and promotional offers would end.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit said this week that the FTC made a procedural error by failing to come up with a preliminary regulatory analysis, which is required for rules whose annual impact on the U.S. economy is more than $100 million.

The FTC said that it did not have to come up with a preliminary regulatory analysis because it initially determined that the rule’s impact on the national economy would be less than $100 million. An administrative law judge decided that the economic impact would be more than the $100 million threshold, and the court decided to vacate the rule.

Former President Joe Biden’s administration had included the FTC’s proposal as part of its “Time is Money” initiative, which aimed to crack down on consumer-related hassles.

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