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Stocks rose on Wednesday, as the White House unveiled details of a $2 trillion infrastructure spending plan, data on employment came in strong, and investors kept watch on bond yields, which have been creeping higher.
Shortly after the open, the
was up 98 points, or 0.3%. The
was 0.4% higher, while the
was up 0.7%.
President Joe Biden’s plan would center on bridges, roads, and transportation, and the total amount spent would be stretched over eight years. To finance the plan, Biden would like to raise the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%, though a few centrist Democrats may push to curb the increase to less than 28%.
Tuesday saw losses for U.S. indexes after the yield on the 10-year Treasury note hit 1.77% before recovering. That yield was at 1.72% on Wednesday.
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In economic news, the ADP employment report showed that 517,000 private-sector jobs were created in March. It was the biggest gain in six months and a sign that the economy continues to gain steam as more people are vaccinated for Covid-19. The news comes ahead of government data nonfarm payrolls for March expected on Friday, a day that will see U.S. exchanges closed in observance of Good Friday.
And analysts cautioned Wednesday could see a bit more volatity than normal.
“With the end of the month and the quarter upon us, we can expect portfolio rebalancing flows to shove markets around and potentially send out some misleading short term signals. I suspect that some of those types of flows were behind the bond market’s late recovery yesterday,” said
Jeffrey Halley,
senior market analyst at Oanda, in a note to clients.
The Dow was up nearly 8% on the quarter, as of Tuesday, and up nearly 7% for March, according to FactSet.
Elsewhere, the
was flat, and London’s
index fell 0.3%. Shares of the food delivery service Deliveroo, which is backed by online retailer
tumbled 30% in a much-anticipated London debut. The Stoxx 600 is set to gain 8% on the quarter and nearly 7% for the month, according to FactSet.
The
dropped 0.9%, with shares of
slumping nearly 4%, a day after it became the latest global bank to warn over the impact of a margin call at Archegos Capital Management. The bank said its European unit took a loss on a U.S. client it is currently estimating to be $300 million.
China’s
index slid 0.9%, even after the country’s economic recovery revved up in March. The official manufacturing purchasing managers index reached a three-month high of 51.9 in March, beating February’s 50.6 reading and forecasts for 51.2 from economists polled by The Wall Street Journal.
stock (ticker: CHWY) surged 12.7%, still gaining in the wake of the surprise profit it reported on Tuesday evening.
(HOG) shares rose 7% after Baird upgraded the stock to Outperform from Neutral.
(AAPL) shares are up 1.1% after UBS upgraded the stock to Buy from Neutral.
(SQ) shares were up 3.4% after Keefe Bruyette & Woods upgraded the stock to Outperform from Market Perform.
(KMX) shares fell 2% after Seaport Global Securities downgraded the stock to Neutral from Buy.
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