TheChek News Flow

The stock market had a solid showing today. Advancing issues led declining issues by a 5-to-2 margin at the NYSE and by a nearly 2-to-1 margin at the Nasdaq. Index level performance for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite was a little shaky, though, due to losses in some heavily-weighted components. The S&P 500 was down 0.2% at its low today and the Nasdaq Composite was down as much as 0.5%.

The Nasdaq Composite (+0.1%) and the S&P 500 (+0.2%) managed to close with gains thanks to a late afternoon move higher with no specific catalyst. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.4%) and Russell 2000 (+0.8%), meanwhile, outperformed relative to other major indices throughout the session.

Mega caps and semiconductor shares were relatively weak after their recent outperformance, falling under some profit-taking activity. NVIDIA (NVDA 682.23, -11.09, -1.6%) was among the influential laggards, dropping more than 1.5% today. With this loss, shares are still up 37.7% in 2024. Meta Platforms (META 454.72, -4.69, -1.0%) declined 1.0% today, leaving it up 28.4% this year.

Meta Platforms and NVIDIA, along with other mega cap constituents, drove the underperformance of the S&P 500 information technology (-0.5%) and communication services (-0.2%) sectors, which were alone in negative territory at the close. The info tech sector is still up 6.8% this year and the communication services sector shows a 9.6% gain.

Weak semiconductor shares also weighed on the info tech sector and left the PHLX Semiconductor Index with a 1.1% loss today. Coherent (COHR 58.00, +8.58, +17.4%) went against the grain in the SOX with a big earnings-related move higher while shares of Amkor (AMKR 30.69, -1.62, -5.0%) traded down after reporting quarterly results.

Other influential stocks that reported earnings included DuPont (DD 65.74, +4.53, +7.4%) and Eli Lilly (LLY 705.03, -1.17, -0.2%). The former propelled the materials sector to a 1.7% gain, which was the largest increase among the nine sectors that finished higher.

In other corporate news, shares of New York Community Bank (NYCB 4.20, -1.20, -22.2%) closed sharply lower after a Bloomberg report that the bank was pressured by regulator to cut its dividend. This put renewed pressure on other regional bank shares. The SPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF (KRE) logged a 1.3% decline.

There was no U.S. economic data of note today to influence price action in Treasuries, but there was a $54 billion 3-yr note auction that was met with strong demand coinciding with Treasuries reaching intraday highs. The 10-yr note yield declined seven basis points to 4.09% and the 2-yr note yield fell six basis points to 4.40%. This activity provided a boost to equities, which struggled to find upside momentum as Treasuries logged sharp declines of late.

Looking ahead, Wednesday's economic calendar features: