U.S. stocks closed higher on Wednesday, driven by a rally in tech stocks, while investors remained wary about surging inflation and tried to assess how much interest rate the Fed would hike in its upcoming meeting. All the three major indexes ended in positive territory.
How Did The Benchmarks Perform?
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) rose 0.2% or 47.79 points to close at 31,874 points. This was the highest closing level for the blue-chip index since Jun 9.
The S&P 500 gained 0.6% or 23.21 points to finish at 3,959.90 points, marking the index’s highest closing level since Jun 9. Communication services, consumer discretionary and tech stocks were the best performers.
The Communication Services Select Sector SPDR (XLC) gained 1.7%, while the Consumer Discretionary Select Sector SPDR (XLY) gained 1.6%. The Technology Select Sector SPDR (XLU)also gained 1.6%. Seven of the 11 sectors of the benchmark index ended in positive territory.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq climbed 1.6% or 184.50 points to end at 11,897.65 points. This was the index’s highest closing level since Jun 8.
The fear-gauge CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) was down 2.53% to 23.88. Advancers outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by a 1.94-to-1 ratio. On Nasdaq, a 2.28-to-1 ratio favored advancing issues. A total of 11.51 billion shares were traded on Wednesday, higher than the last 20-session average of 11.43 billion.
Investors Finally Confident, Netflix Impresses
Markets closed in the green on Tuesday and the momentum continued through Wednesday, as investors finally seem to be regaining the lost confidence. This came after a survey released earlier this week showed fund managers at their most bearish level since the great depression.
This is also the first time in almost three months that the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 are sitting above their 50-day moving averages, indicating that the downward movement may have finally reversed.
The positive sentiment made investors bet that markets may have finally found a bottom and things can only improve from here, as they once again shifted focus toward riskier assets such as tech and consumer discretionary stocks, sending them on a rally. Shares of Meta Platforms, Inc.
META
and Salesforce, Inc.
CRM
jumped 4.2% and 5%, respectively. Salesforce has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see
the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here
.
Netflix, Inc.
NFLX
was largely responsible for Wednesday’s tech rally. The streaming giant not only recorded an earnings beat but also said that it lost 970,000 subscribers in the second quarter, far lower than the 2 million it had previously projected. Netflix reported quarterly earnings of $3.20 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2.90 per share. Shares of Netflix jumped 7.4%.
Earnings Season So Far Impressive
The second-quarter earnings season is finally gathering pace. So far, 12% of the S&P 500 companies have reported their quarterly results. Of these, 68% have surpassed analysts’ expectations, which means it has been an impressive performance by the companies in the second quarter.
A spate of big companies will be reporting their quarterly earnings over the next couple of weeks and investors will be closely watching them.
Economic Data
Economic data released on Wednesday once again showed signs that the housing market is cooling off. The National Association of Realtors said on Wednesday that existing home sales declined 5.4% in June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.12 million units, hitting its weakest level in two years or from the time the COVID-induced lockdown was first implemented.
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