U.S. stocks traded mixed Monday morning, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 gaining some loft toward records while the Nasdaq Composite pulled back after touching an intraday peak.
Investors await semiannual testimony from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell beginning Wednesday and a batch of economic reports throughout the week. The week also will see the unofficial start of corporate quarterly results.
See: A crazy week for U.S. stocks came with a change in the market narrative—should investors believe it?
How are stock benchmarks trading?
-
The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
+0.37%
was 108 points, or 0.3%, higher at 34,976. -
S&P 500 index
SPX,
+0.27%
was trading 7 points, or 0.2%, higher at about 4,377, touching an intraday high at 4,777.41. -
Nasdaq Composite Index
COMP,
+0.04%
traded 17 points, or 0.1%, lower at 14,684, after establishing an intraday all-time high at 14,761.08.
On Friday, the Dow and S&P 500 finished the session at record highs, booking weekly gains of about 0.2% and 0.4%, respectively. The Nasdaq Composite finished the week at an all-time high with a 0.4% weekly gain.
What’s driving the market?
After a record finish for all three equity benchmarks Friday, markets were on uncertain footing Monday ahead of a number of key events that could serve as catalysts later in the week. The unofficial start of earnings season, which JPMorgan Chase & Co.
JPM,
+0.94%
will kick off Tuesday, Powell’s testimony on Capitol Hill, and fresh readings on inflation will likely be the big stories of the week.
Equity markets experienced a bout of turbulence last week before ending with a flourish, prompted partly by a drop in Treasury yields, which raised questions about the outlook for the U.S. economy in the recovery from the pandemic, amid a surge in the spread of the Delta variant of COVID-19, and lofty valuations being assigned to some segments of the market.
Questions about the Fed’s monetary policy in the face of growing evidence of percolating inflation also have been blamed for some of the rocky trading.
Yields for the 10-year
TMUBMUSD10Y,
1.362%
and 30-year Treasury yields
TMUBMUSD30Y,
1.988%
touched lows not seen since February and were still hanging around those levels on Monday morning.
Although concerns about COVID variants continue to buffet upbeat sentiment, some strategists said that if the continued spread of variants delays the rollback of market-stimulative measures by the Fed, then it could ultimately be perceived as a positive factor for bullish investors.
Fawad Razaqzada, market analyst with ThinkMarkets, said COVID infections are “more of a concern for emerging markets since vaccinations in those regions are still moving slowly.”
The U.S. leads the world with a total of 33.85 million cases and in deaths with 607,156. Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday it was “horrifying” to see conservatives cheer for low vaccination rates, blaming “ideological rigidity” for hobbling the fight against COVID-19. Fauci, President Joe Biden’s top pandemic adviser, spoke Sunday on CNN.
“Still, with the markets relaying so much on central bank support, anything that causes a delay in tapering QE purchases should be positive for stocks. So, I doubt Monday’s weakness will last very long,” Razaqzada added, referencing the $120 billion a month asset-purchase program known as QE, or quantitative easing.
No key data were on deck Monday ahead of a busy week in economic reports, starting with a reading of consumer prices on Tuesday.
Minnesota Fed President Neel Kashkari is scheduled to speak at 12 p.m.
Separately, investors were also focused on discussions among finance ministers from the G-20, who are trying to assess the potential implications of a proposal for a global minimum tax.
“We need sustainable sources of revenue that do not rely on further taxing workers’ wages and exacerbating the economic disparities that we are all committed to reducing,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a speech to European Union countries about revamping the corporate tax code internationally.
“We need to put an end to corporations shifting capital income to low tax jurisdictions, and to accounting gimmicks that allow them to avoid paying their fair share,” she said.
Which companies are in focus?
- Shares of Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. SPCE fell around 11% Monday, a day after founder Richard Branson and five crewmates successfully flew into suborbital space on the company’s VSS Unity rocket-powered spaceplane.
- Couchbase Inc. BASE, a provider of a database for enterprise applications, set terms for its initial public offering on Monday, with plans to offer 7 million shares, priced at $20 to $23 each. The company has applied to list on Nasdaq, under the ticker ‘BASE.’
- Shares of Moderna Inc. MRNA were up about 3% Monday after the company said it will supply 20 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to Argentina.
- Shares of SolarWinds Corp. SWI were lower Monday, even after the information technology infrastructure management software company provided an upbeat second-quarter revenue outlook.
How are other assets faring?
- The ICE U.S. Dollar Index DXY, a measure of the currency against six major rivals, was up 0.1%.
-
Oil futures traded sharply lower on Monday, with the U.S. benchmark CL00
CL.1,
-0.76%
down 1.7% at $73.35 a barrel. Gold GC00 traded 1% lower at $1,793.60 an ounce. - In European equities, the Stoxx Europe 600 SXXP rose 0.6%. London’s FTSE 100 UKX traded fractionally higher.
- In Asia, the Shanghai Composite SHCOMP gained 0.7%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index HSI rose 0.6% on the session and Japan’s Nikkei 225 NIK rallied 2.3% on Monday.
