Closing Stock Market Summary
Today's trade featured mostly negative action on below-average volume at the NYSE. Some early buying efforts, which were driven by a buy-the-dip mentality, faded quickly with no specific news catalyst to account for the activity. There was another attempt to move higher in the afternoon trade, which ran into some resistance, but still led the major indices to close off their lows.
The overall downside vibe felt through the session was due to weakness in mega cap stocks and semiconductor names. The Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK) settled 1.0% lower and the PHLX Semiconductor Index dropped 3.3%.
ASML (ASML 907.91, -69.31, -7.1%) was the worst performer in the SOX after reporting weaker-than-expected Q1 bookings. NVIDIA (NVDA 840.35, -33.80, -3.9%) was another influential laggard from the space, clipped by ongoing consolidation efforts in stocks that have logged huge gains since the start of the year. NVDA shares are still nearly 70% higher on the year.
The soft showing from some mega cap and semiconductor-related shares weighed on the S&P 500 information technology sector (-1.7%). It was the worst performing sector today followed by the real estate sector (-0.8%).
Meanwhile, the utilities sector (+2.1%) saw the largest gain by a wide margin, followed by the consumer staples (+0.5%) and materials (+0.2%) sectors.
Some negative responses to earnings news since yesterday's close has also contributed to the negative bias. Dow component Travelers (TRV 206.58, -16.54, -7.4%) was a standout loser in that respect. J.B. Hunt Transport (JBHT 168.13, -14.86, -8.1%) also logged a big loss after disappointing quarterly results.
United Airlines (UAL 48.74, +7.24, +17.5%), meanwhile, was up big after pleasing quarterly results.
The attempted afternoon rebound in stocks was related in part to pleasing price action in Treasuries. The 10-yr note yield settled seven basis points lower than yesterday at 4.59%. The 2-yr note yield fell three basis points to 4.93%. Yields were already moving lower before today's $13 billion 20-yr bond auction was met with excellent demand.
- S&P 500:+5.3% YTD
- Nasdaq Composite: +4.5% YTD
- S&P Midcap 400: +1.8% YTD
- Dow Jones Industrial Average: +0.2% YTD
- Russell 2000: -2.9% YTD
Reviewing today's economic data:
- Weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index 3.3%; Prior 0.1%
- Weekly crude oil inventories increased by 2.74 mln barrels after increasing by 5.84 mln barrels a week ago
Thursday's economic calendar futures:
- 8:30 ET: Weekly Initial Claims (consensus 215,000; prior 211,000), Continuing Claims (prior 1.817 mln), and April Philadelphia Fed survey (consensus 0.0; prior 3.2)
- 10:00 ET: March Existing Home Sales (consensus 4.20 mln; prior 4.38 mln) and March Leading Indicators (consensus -0.1%; prior 0.1%)
- 10:30 ET: Weekly natural gas inventories (prior +24 bcf)