Tech shares lead stocks on day of gains
Major U.S. indexes reach all-time highs as market surges
Stocks shook off an early stumble and closed broadly higher Monday, nudging some of the major U.S. indexes to more all-time highs as the market added to its recent string of gains.
The S&P 500 rose 0.7 percent after having been down 0.5 percent in the early going, extending its winning streak to a fifth day. Technology stocks, airlines, cruise operators and other companies that rely on consumer spending helped lift the market. Banks and energy stocks were the only laggards.
Wall Street continues to eye the bond market, where yields pulled back a bit from Friday’s sharp increase. Investors are also focused on the recovery of the U.S. and global economies from the coronavirus pandemic. The $1.9 trillion aid package for the U.S. economy has lifted investors’ confidence in a strong recovery from the pandemic in the second half of the year, but also raised concerns about a potential jump in inflation.
President Joe Biden’s pledge to expand vaccine eligibility to all Americans by May 1 should also translate into faster economic growth.
Rising interest rates continue to be a key concern for investors following the sudden jump over the last month in bond yields. Rates are not yet at a concerning level, and both the markets and economy can easily digest them, said Yung-yu Ma, chief investment strategist at BMO Wealth Management.
“The question ultimately becomes how well markets can digest and stay the course on the idea that these increases are temporary,” he said. “As well as coming to terms with the idea that temporary might be three or four quarters.”
The S&P 500 rose 25.60 points to 3,368.94. The Dow Jones Industrial Average
gained 174.82 points, or 0.5 percent, to 32,953.46. Both indexes hit all-time highs, eclipsing records set on Friday.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite added 139.84 points, or 1.1 percent, to 13,459.71, while the Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 7.38 points, or 0.3 percent, to 2,360.17. That gain was enough for an all-time high.
Bond yields ticked mildly lower on Monday, with the 10year U.S. Treasury note falling to 1.61 percent from 1.62 percent on Friday. The mild drop in yields was affecting bank stocks the most, where investors have placed big bets that higher yields would translate into banks charging borrowers higher rates. Bank of America fell 0.5 percent, Wells Fargo dropped 0.7 percent and Citigroup lost 1.3 percent.
Technology stocks, which have been hurt by the rise in bond yields, resumed climbing. Apple rose 2.4 percent, while Tesla Motor Co. gained 2 percent The bond market has pulled tech stocks mostly lower this year, because as yields push interest rates higher, they make highflying stocks look expensive.
Some economists fear that inflation, which has been dormant over the past decade, could accelerate under the extra demand generated by a surge in government spending. Others disagree, pointing out that there are 9.5 million fewer jobs in the American economy than there were before the pandemic hit, and argue that unemployment will keep a lid on inflation.
United Airlines surged 8.3 percent for the biggest gain in the S&P 500, while American Airlines rose 7.7 percent. Delta Air Lines gained 2.3 percent and Jetblue Airways climbed 5.9 percent. The rally in airline stocks came as the Transportation Security Administration screened more than 1.3 million people Friday and Sunday, the most since COVID devastated travel a year ago.
Cruise operators, whose shares have been pummeled over the past year, also had a good day. Carnival gained 4.7 percent, while Royal Caribbean climbed 4.8 percent and Norwegian Cruise Line added 2.7 percent.
Pedro Almodovar exposed all his vulnerability in the semi-autobiographical film “Pain and Glory.” Now he returns his focus to women not only with the short film “The Human Voice,” an Oscar hopeful that arrives this week in the United States, but with an upcoming movie that reunites him with his muse Penelope Cruz.
“Madres paralelas” (“Parallel Mothers”) begins production March 21 in Madrid “if the virus does not interfere,” said the Spanish director.
“I return to the female universe and to motherhood as well, which is a subject that has always fascinated me. But in this case, the mothers are very different from the ones Penelope has played before,” Almodovar said.
“These are very imperfect mothers and as an author that’s what interested me the most, especially because I have already done several selfsacrificing and heroic mothers,” he said. “So this is a little bit about descendants, children, but also about ancestors, about family.”
That’s not all he has in mind.
Having shot his first English production with Tilda Swinton — an adaptation of Jean Cocteau’s play “The Human Voice” — he plans another English-language short in a genre he hasn’t explored yet: the Western.
The thing is that making short films “has been very refreshing for me, like recovering new airs,” Almodovar said.
“The Human Voice” opens Friday in northern California, Miami and Chicago before expanding to other markets.
Almodovar, 71, who had COVID -19 just before the quarantine began in Spain a year ago, spoke about the confinement of his protagonist in “The Human Voice,” the technical freedoms he took in this film and the role of streaming during the pandemic and his desire to work with Anya Taylorjoy, star of “The Queen’s Gambit.”
Answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.
AP: You’ve been flirting with the idea of adapting “The Human Voice” for many years. Did the fact that the story unfolds in confinement had anything to do with the decision to make it now? Almodovar: The truth is that I had it in mind before the confinement started, but the film is, besides the story of a
woman desperate because of her lover’s abandonment — that is confinement, the fact of not seeing the light when someone is as madly in love as Tilda Swinton in the movie. It becomes a metaphor because she is confined first in the set that we have created as her house, but then that set is part of another closed space where she moves like a ghost, which is the studio where we filmed.
AP: The camera leaves the walls of the apartment more than once to show the set and the equipment to represent the outdoors. It seems a nod to the theater and an emphasis to the confinement in which we find ourselves. Almodovar: As an experiment, I really wanted to get out of the set and show the matter of the cinematographic artifice — the wood, the construction, the empty walls. But it was also not only a visual whim but for example, the fact that a woman is on a terrace looking at the skyline and we verify that there is no skyline but what there is a wall gives the impression that her loneliness is greater, that she lives in the dark almost like a ghost. The fact of also having the (telephone) conversation in motion with the earphones and not seeing who she is addressing gives the character a much greater feeling of loneliness. I tried to unite something purely theatrical, which is the monologue, with something essentially cinematographic, which is the place where it is shot.
AP: Swinton delivers a magnetic performance. What was it like working with her?
Almodovar: I was a little scared to work in English, but it was also one of the reasons for making this short, the fact that it’s 30 minutes was kind of an exercise to see if I was able to direct in English. Tilda’s intervention has been key because from the first rehearsals there was an incredible chemistry between the two. We understood each other from the first moment and I didn’t feel that I was speaking in a different language. Ultimately, the language we both spoke was the language of the cinema.