Closing Stock Market Summary
Today's trade featured lackluster price action through most of the session. The major indices were trading either slightly above or slightly below prior closing levels. Index levels improved, though, over the last hour of trading, which left the major indices at session highs.
Gains in some mega cap names acted as support for the entire session, picking up momentum in front of the close. The Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK) was down as much as 0.3% earlier, but closed with a 0.4% gain near its high of the day.
NVIDIA (NVDA 953.86, +6.06, +0.6%) was a winner from the mega cap space after exhibiting volatile price action in front of its earnings report after Wednesday's close. NVDA shares had been up as much as 0.7% today and traded down as much as 1.7%, which contributed to the overall mixed feeling in the market.
Some high-profile stocks that reported earnings since yesterday's close received negative responses their results. Palo Alto Networks (PANW 311.66, -12.11, -3.7%) was among the standouts in that respect.
Retailers Lowe's (LOW 224.86, -4.31, -1.9%) and AutoZone (AZO 2820.83, -103.21, -3.5%) also received negative responses to their earnings news, acting as a limiting factor for the S&P 500 consumer discretionary sector along with a loss in Amazon.com (AMZN 183.15, -0.39, -0.2%). The sector still logged a gain thanks to a jump in shares of Tesla (TSLA 186.60, +11.65, +6.7%).
Macy's (M 20.08, +0.98, +5.1%) is not an S&P 500 component, but it is another retailer that reported earnings, logging a solid gain in response.
Target (TGT 155.78, -0.93, -0.6%), TJX (TJX 97.70, -0.09, -0.1%), Petco Health and Wellness (WOOF 2.45, -0.13, -5.0%), and Williams-Sonoma (WSM 314.38, -2.20, -0.7%) report earnings in front of tomorrow's open.
Treasury yields settled slightly lower, but that didn't translated into support for stocks. The 2-yr note yield settled one basis point 4.83% and the 10-yr note yield fell two basis points today to 4.41%.
There was no US economic data of note again today, but Wednesday's calendar features the release of the Minutes from the April 30-May 1 FOMC meeting and the Existing Home Sales report for April. Wednesday's lineup also features the weekly MBA Mortgage Index and the weekly EIA Crude Oil Inventories.
- Nasdaq Composite: +12.1% YTD
- S&P 500:+11.6% YTD
- S&P Midcap 400: +8.4% YTD
- Dow Jones Industrial Average: +5.8% YTD
- Russell 2000: +3.5% YTD