Big day for Wall Street
Stocks rally for record highs as President Biden takes oath of office.
Wall Street marked the dawn of President Joe Biden’s administration with stocks rallying to record highs as hopes build that new leadership in Washington will mean more support for the struggling U.S. economy.
The S&P 500 rose 1.4%, topping its previous high set this month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, Nasdaq composite and Russell 2000 index of smaller companies also notched record highs, powered by gains in technology, communications, health care and most other sectors.
Biden, now the nation’s 46th president, has a flurry of executive actions ready. He has also pitched a plan to pump$1.9 trillion more into the struggling economy, hoping to act quickly with the Democratic Party nowin control of the White House and both houses of Congress.
The hope on Wall Street is that such stimulus will help carry the economy until later this year, when more widespread COVID-19 vaccinations get daily life closer to normal. Such hopes have helped stocks and Treasury yields rise, even as the worsening pandemic digs a deeper hole for the economy. Spiraling coronavirus counts and deaths have more workers applying for unemployment benefits and shoppers feeling less confident.
The S&P 500 rose 52.94 points to 3,851.85. The Dow gained 257.86 points, or 0.8%, to 31,188.38. The Nasdaq climbed 260.07 points, or 2%, to 13,457.25. The Russell 2000 picked up 9.48 points, or 0.4%, to 2,160.62.
A better-than-expected start to earnings reporting season also helped lift the market Wednesday. Analysts came in with low expectations, forecasting the big companies in the S&P 500 will report a fourth straight drop in earnings per share because of the damage from the pandemic. But the vast majority of the earliest reports have managed to top forecasts.
Netflix jumped 16.9% for the S&P 500’s biggest gain after it said it ended last year with more than 200 million subscribers. It also said it made more in revenue during the end of 2020 than analysts expected, though its earnings fell short of forecasts.
In Washington, the Biden administration took control of the White House from Donald Trump, who pointed again on Wednesday to the stock market’s level as validation of his work.
Trump’s preferred measure is often the Dow Jones Industrial Average, even though the S&P 500 is much more important to most workers’ 401(k) accounts. Under Trump, the Dow had ana annualized return of 11.8% from his inauguration until his last day in office, according to Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist for LPL Financial. That’s better than any Republican president since Calvin Coolidge, during the 1920s, but it’s not as good as the returns for Democrats Bill Clinton or Barack Obama.
Gains for stocks have also been accelerating since Biden’s election, before his inauguration, on enthusiasm about COVID-19 vaccines and hopes that he and Congress can deliver more stimulus for the economy. The bump for stocks between the most recent Election Day and Biden’s inauguration is bigger than Trump’s bump before his inauguration.
“The market is up more than 13% since Election Day,” Stovall said, noting that since World War II, the S&P500 has risen an average of 3.5% in the first 100 days of a Democratic president’s administration, versus an average gain of 0.5% when a Republican was in the White House.