Closing Stock Market Summary
Today's trade brought many stocks lower, leaving the major indices near their lows of the day. The S&P 500 closed above its 200-day moving average yesterday (now 4,238), but opened below that key level today before ultimately settling below 4,200. The disappointing price action itself acted as a downside catalyst, along with a jump in rates and a big loss in Alphabet (GOOG 126.67, -13.45, -9.6%) following an earnings report that contained some relatively disappointing growth for its cloud business.
Microsoft (MSFT 340.67, +10.14, +3.1%) was a winning standout after reporting some impressive growth for its Azure business, but other mega caps slid alongside Alphabet. The Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK) fell 2.2% versus a 1.4% decline in the S&P 500. The equal weighted S&P 500, meanwhile, fell 1.1%.
General Dynamics (GD 242.40, +9.40, +4.0%), Visa (V 236.85, +2.20, +0.9%) and Waste Management (WM 164.07, +9.44, +6.1%) also registered gains after impressing with their quarterly results while Boeing (BA 177.73, -4.63, -2.6%) and Texas Instruments (TXN 141.79, -5.13, -3.5%) saw sizable declines.
Nine of the 11 S&P 500 sectors declined. The communication services sector (-5.9%) was the worst performer by a wide margin, weighed down by Alphabet. The utilities (+0.5%) and consumer staples (+0.3%) sectors were alone in positive territory at the close.
The 10-yr note yield climbed 11 basis points to 4.95% and the 2-yr note yield rose two basis points to 5.12%. Yields were already moving up, but turned higher in response to this morning's release of the September New Home Sales report, which showed the strongest annual rate of sales (759,000) since February 2022. Another wave of selling hit the Treasury market following a $52 billion 5-yr note sale that met dismal demand.
In other news, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) was elected Speaker of the House after receiving unanimous Republican support.
- Nasdaq Composite: +22.5% YTD
- S&P 500: +9.0% YTD
- Dow Jones Industrial Average: -0.3% YTD
- S&P Midcap 400: -3.5% YTD
- Russell 2000: -6.2% YTD
Reviewing today's economic data:
- Weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index -1.0%; Prior -6.9%
- September New Home Sales 759K (consensus 683K); Prior was revised to 676K from 675K
- The key takeaway from the report is that new home sales activity in September picked up noticeably, aided by lower prices and reportedly mortgage rate concessions from builders.
Thursday's economic calendar features:
- 8:30 ET: Advance Q3 GDP (consensus 4.0%; prior 2.1%), advance Q3 GDP Chain Deflator ( consensus 2.7%; prior 1.7%), weekly Initial Claims ( consensus 210,000; prior 198,000), Continuing Claims (prior 1.734 mln), September Durable Orders ( consensus 1.5%; prior 0.2%), Durable Orders ex-transportation ( consensus 0.3%; prior 0.4%), advance September goods trade balance (prior -$84.3 bln), advance September Retail Inventories (prior 1.1%), and advance September Wholesale Inventories (prior -0.1%)
- 10:00 ET: September Pending Home Sales ( consensus 0.5%; prior -7.1%)
- 10:30 ET: Weekly natural gas inventories (prior +97 bcf)