Closing Stock Market Summary
The stock market exhibited mixed action today. There wasn't a lot of conviction from buyers or sellers after the holiday weekend. This led the major indices to trade above and below prior closing levels, reacting to the price action in mega cap stocks and Treasuries.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed more than 200 points lower today while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.6%) closed at a fresh record high, above 17,000 for the first time, thanks to a late surge of buying activity in mega cap stocks.
This price action also left the S&P 500 little changed from yesterday, but the index had been down as much as 0.4% earlier.
NVIDIA (NVDA 1139.01, +74.32, +7.0%) provided some support to the broader market today due to the notion that xAI's $6 billion capital raise will benefit the AI chipmaker. Other top performing mega caps that participated in the afternoon move higher included Amazon (AMZN 182.15, +1.40, +0.8%) and Meta Platforms (META 479.92, +1.70, +0.4%).
Apple (AAPL 189.99, +0.01, +0.01%) had been trading up as much as 1.6% at its high, but shares were left out of the late surge.
The information technology sector was one of only three S&P 500 sectors to close with a gain, benefitting from the upside move in NVDA and gains in other mega caps.
The activity in Treasuries kept pressure on equities through the session. The 2-yr note yield settled three basis points higher at 4.98% and the 10-yr note yield rose eight basis points today to 4.54%. This price action was in response to a stronger-than-expected Consumer Confidence report for May, and today's $69 billion 2-yr note and $70 billion 5-yr note sale, which met weak demand.
- Nasdaq Composite: +13.4% YTD
- S&P 500:+11.2% YTD
- S&P Midcap 400: +6.3% YTD
- Dow Jones Industrial Average: +3.1% YTD
- Russell 2000: +2.0% YTD
Reviewing overnight developments:
- March FHFA Housing Price Index 0.1%; Prior 1.2%
- March S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index 7.4% (consensus 7.0%); Prior 7.3%
- May Consumer Confidence 102.0 (consensus 96.0); Prior was revised to 97.5 from 97.0
- The key takeaway from the report is that consumers are feeling good about labor market conditions, which is important as that typically translates into increased spending activity.
Looking ahead, market participants will receive the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index at 7:00 ET tomorrow. Wednesday's calendar also features the release of the Fed's Beige Book at 2:00 ET and the results of a $44 billion 7-yr Treasury note auction will be released at 1:00 ET.