The S&P 500 traded near the flat line after the index closed higher by 0.9% on Wednesday to bring it within 0.3% of its recent record closing high.
Corporate earnings have so far exceeded Wall Street’s even lofty expectations, as companies benefited from both a pick-up in revenue as demand recovered, and as cost-cutting measures implemented during the pandemic boosted their bottom lines.
Everything that we’ve done over the last twelve months has been to build up to this point, to get this recovery, to get a very, very strong second-quarter GDP, which we think could be upwards of 10%,” Jim Caron, Morgan Stanley investment management fixed income portfolio manager, told Yahoo Finance.
And once we have that, we’ve already spent $5.8 trillion, we’re going to spend some more, we’re going to have a very large deficit, so then what comes next? The next 12 months of fiscal spending is probably going to be less than the last 12 months,” Caron added.
We’re probably about 5% away from our year-end price target,” Anastasia Amoroso, JPMorgan Private Bank head of cross asset thematic strategist, told Yahoo Finance.
The industrials, real estate and communication services sectors led advances in the S&P 500, with a mix of cyclicals and growth tech stocks leading on Wednesday.
Sales of previously owned homes slumped another 3.7% in March after a 6.3% from in February, according to the National Association of Realtors.
“This is a housing-specific story, driven by rising mortgage rates and tightening lending standards, and – perhaps – fading COVID fear making the flight to the burbs less attractive,” he added.
New jobless claims totaled 547,000 last week, the Labor Department announced Thursday.
“I think that reflects this internal reassessment among investors trying to decide how tilted to be to the industrial cyclical names and how committed they can continue to be to these long term good, strong growth names.”Capping the Nasdaq’s gains: Netflix.
AT&T’s controversial move to make its entire 2021 theatrical movies slate available to its streaming customers at the same time helped the company attract 2.7 million new subscribers for HBO and HBO Max.
Metal detectors and security checks may soon be a thing of the past.