Closing Stock Market SummaryToday, the stock market was able to build on yesterday's gains with added interest in the higher growth areas. The market opened modestly lower before finding momentum to the upside. There was a quick dip when a report came out suggesting Alphabet's Google (GOOG 114.70, +0.08, +0.1%) is going to pause hiring for two weeks. The market took the news in stride and the knee jerk selling interest soon shook off with the indices moving back to the highs by late afternoon.
The mega caps did some heavy lifting today with the Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK) closing up 1.5% versus a 0.6% gain in the S&P 500 and a 0.7% gain in the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP).
The interest in high growth areas could be seen in the S&P 500 sector performance. Communication services (+1.0%), information technology (+1.6%), and consumer discretionary (+1.8%) were some of the best performers on the day thanks, in part, to their respective mega cap components: Meta Platforms (META 183.09, 7.31, +4.2%), Apple (AAPL 153.04, +2.04, +1.4%), and Amazon.com (AMZN 122.77, +4.56, +3.9%).
Communication services was also bolstered by Netflix's (NFLX 216.46, +14.83, +7.4%) outsized gains after the company had better-than-expected Q2 results and lost "only" 970,000 subscribers, which was half the estimated amount.
As for the laggards, the countercyclical sectors, utilities (-1.4%), consumer staples (-0.7%), and health care (-1.1%), led the underperformers.
The health care sector had a rough go today after a few components, which reported earnings this morning, sold off heavily. Elevance Health (ELV 459.54, -37.89, -7.6%), Biogen (BIIB 207.49, -12.77, -5.8%), and Abbott Labs (ABT 108.23, -1.70, -1.6%) were all down big despite beating earnings and revenue estimates and issuing above-consensus guidance.
With buyers favoring growthy areas, the Russell 3000 Growth Index (+1.2%) outpaced the Russell 3000 Value Index, which closed up 0.4%.
The 2-yr note yield rose two basis points to 3.24% and the 10-yr note yield rose two basis points to 3.04% after testing 2.94% in early morning action.
The earnings reports ahead of tomorrow's open will be headlined by American Airlines (AAL), AT&T (T), AutoNation (AN), Blackstone (BX), D.R. Horton (DHI), Danaher (DHR), Dow (DOW), Freeport-McMoRan (FCX), Nucor (NUE), SAP SE (SAP), Tractor Supply (TSCO), Travelers (TRV), Union Pacific (UNP).
Thursday's economic data includes weekly initial jobless claims (Briefing.com consensus 240,000; prior 244,000), continuing claims (prior 1.331 million), and July Philadelphia Fed Index (Briefing.com consensus -1.2; prior -3.3) at 8:30 ET; June Leading Economic Index (Briefing.com consensus -0.5%; prior -0.4%) at 10:00 ET; and Weekly EIA Natural Gas Inventories (prior +58 bcf) at 10:30 ET.
Today's economic data includes:
- Existing home sales decreased 5.4% month-over-month in June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.12 million (consensus 5.40 million) versus 5.41 million in May. Total sales in June were down 14.2% from a year ago.
- The key takeaway from the report is that the supply of available homes for sale remains extremely tight, yet higher mortgage rates and home price inflation are contributing to a slowdown in buyer demand rooted in affordability pressures that are expected to persist.
- Crude oil inventories had a draw of 446K barrels
- Prior week showed a build of 3.25 mln barrels
- Gasoline inventories had a build of 3.50 mln barrels
- Prior week showed a build of 5.83 mln barrels
- Dow Jones Industrial Average: -12.3% YTD
- S&P 400: -15.6% YTD
- S&P 500: -16.9% YTD
- Russell 2000: -18.6% YTD
- Nasdaq Composite: -24.0% YTD