Closing Stock Market Summary
Today's trade had a positive bias. Advancers led decliners by a 9-to-2 margin at the NYSE and by a 5-to-2 margin at the Nasdaq. The upside moves were driven by an ongoing inclination to buy on weakness following yesterday's afternoon slide.
Some normal consolidation activity in heavily-weighted names kept a limit on index gains in the early going. By the close, though, many stocks were participating in upside moves, sending the major indices sharply higher. The market ultimately closed at or near session highs, which had the S&P 500 at a fresh all-time high.
NVIDIA (NVDA 902.50, -23.11, -2.5%), Meta Platforms (META 493.86, -2.03, -0.4%), Microsoft (MSFT 421.43, -0.22, -0.1%), and Broadcom (AVGO 1318.79, -12.70, -1.0%), which are all sitting on large gains since the start of the year, were left out of the broad afternoon rally.
Meanwhile, the Russell 2000 continued its recent outperformance today, climbing 2.2%. The small cap index benefitted from strength in regional bank stocks, which also boosted the SPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF (KRE) (+3.7%). Other bank stocks outperformed, too, as evidenced by a 3.2% gain in the SPDR S&P Bank ETF (KBE).
Regional banks received some extra attention after Standard & Poor's lowered the outlook on First Commonwealth Bank (FCF 13.80, +0.47, +3.5%), M&T Bank (MTB 144.80, +3.57, +2.5%), Synovus Financial (SNV 39.82, +1.32, +3.4%), Trustmark (TRMK 28.06, +0.81, +3.0%), and Valley National Bancorp (VLY 7.90, +0.29, +3.8%) to Negative from Stable due to ongoing stress in commercial real estate, but that didn't deter buying activity in the space.
On a related note, the S&P 500 financial sector jumped 1.2%. Eight of the 11 S&P 500 sectors gained more than 1.0% from yesterday's close. The rate-sensitive utilities (+2.8%) and real estate (+2.4%) sectors were the top performers, responding to a drop in yields.
The 10-yr note yield settled four basis points lower at 4.20% and the 2-yr note yield fell three basis points to 4.57%.
- S&P 500:+10.0% YTD
- Nasdaq Composite: +9.3% YTD
- S&P Midcap 400: +9.1% YTD
- Dow Jones Industrial Average: +5.5% YTD
- Russell 2000: +4.3% YTD
Reviewing today's economic data:
- Weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index declined 0.7% with purchase applications falling 2% and refinance applications down 0.2% from the prior week
- Weekly EIA Crude Oil Inventories had a build of 3.17 million barrels; prior week showed a draw of 1.95 million barrels
Thursday's calendar features a slate of economic releases, including:
- 8:30 ET: Q4 GDP -- third estimate (Briefing.com consensus 3.2%; prior 3.2%), Q4 GDP Deflator -- third estimate (consensus 1.7%; prior 1.6%), Weekly Initial Claims (consensus 213,000; prior 210,000), and Continuing Claims (prior 1.807 mln)
- 10:00 ET: Final March University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment (consensus 76.5; prior 76.5) and February Pending Home Sales (Briefing.com consensus 2.1%; prior -4.9%)
- 10:30 ET: Weekly natural gas inventories