Tech stocks’ rally helps steady Wall Street
Wall Street was split on Monday, as continued gains for technology and health care stocks helped cover up for more prevalent losses elsewhere.
The S&P 500 ended the day at a virtual standstill, up just 0.52 points at 2,930.32, despite a lot of movement going on underneath. It rallied from an earlier loss of 0.9% in the morning.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 109.33 points, or 0.4%, to 24,221.99, while the Nasdaq composite added 71.02, or 0.8%, to 9,192.34.
Through the muddled day, one of the market’s few points of clarity was that investors continue to love technology stocks.
Even with the coronavirus pandemic throwing the global economy into disarray, tech stocks in the S&P 500 have been remarkably resilient. They’re up 4.1% for 2020 as investors look for companies that can be winners in both a ”normal” and a stayathome economy.
Apple rose 1.6%, Nvidia added 3.2% to return to a record and Advanced Micro Devices climbed 4.8% for one of Monday’s biggest gains in the S&P 500.
This year’s secondbest sector has been health care, which has trimmed its loss for 2020 to just 1%.
Biotech stocks were particularly strong Monday. And Cardinal Health had the biggest gain in the S&P 500, up 6.7%, after reporting strongerthanexpected earnings for its latest quarter, partly because of increased pharmaceutical sales due to the pandemic.
Those gains helped to make up for 69% of stocks falling in the S&P 500. It also leaves the index within reach of its highest level since early March.
“People are looking ahead, and they’re saying, ‘OK, the pandemic has happened, and the damage has swept through our economy and our businesses, and now we’re planning on the growth after the carnage, so we’re valuing equities as if we’re going to go back to a decent growth environment,’ ” said Mike Zigmont, head of trading and research at Harvest Volatility Management.
The S&P 500 has rallied 31% since late March, at first on relief after the Federal Reserve and Capitol Hill pledged massive amounts of aid for the economy. More recently, some investors have focused on the possibility of a strong recovery later this year, after governments reopen economies and lift businessshutdown orders meant to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
That optimistic view took some hits Monday, though, as worries rose about the possibility of new waves of infections hitting countries that are further ahead in lifting lockdown measures. Investors pointed to small but disconcerting increases of infections in South Korea, China and elsewhere.
The worries helped lead companies whose profits are most closely tied to the strength of the economy to the market’s biggest losses.
“I don’t know why investors are feeling so comfortable with those expectations,” Zigmont said of forecasts for a turnaround in profit growth in 2021 and 2022. “They are so far away, and there’s so much uncertainty between now and then, and yet investors seem to be OK” with paying up in anticipation that companies will hit those targets.
Financial stocks fell 1.9% for the biggest loss among the 11 sectors that make up the index. Bank stocks have been hit hard this year on worries that the recession will lead to a wave of households and businesses defaulting on their loans. Bank of
America dropped 4.2% Monday, and Citigroup lost 4.9%.
Energy companies and rawmaterial producers also fell on worries that a weaker global economy will need less oil and fewer basic building blocks.
The data streaming in on the economy remain oppressively bad. After a report on Friday showed U.S. employers cut a recordsetting 20.5 million jobs in April, Italy reported Monday its largestever drop in industrial production. More data reports this week include U.S. unemployment claims and retail sales and Australian jobs.