Ozgordonmaz
On Thursday, US stocks were on track to end a choppy trading session on the upside, supported by gains in technology and energy names. After swinging intraday, Wall Street’s major indexes moved decidedly late in the day ahead of more economics data on inflation. Meanwhile, chip giant NVIDIA jumped after its quarterly results.
In the last hour of trading, the high-tech Nasdaq Composite Index (COMP. IND) king up 1.01% to 11623.30 points. The benchmark was the S&P 500 (SP500) 0.76% higher to 4021.51 points, while the Dow index rose (DJI) advanced 0.46% to 33198.31 points.
Of the 11 S&P sectors, eight are advanced, led by technology and energy. Services and communication facilities topped the losers.
Concerns about the future path of the Fed’s rate hike weighed on key averages this week. However, today’s late session boost helped the S&P 500 and put it on track to snap a four-day losing streak.
The focus is on the economic calendar on Thursday. The second estimate for US Q4 GDP was revised downward to +2.7%, compared to forecasts of +2.9%.
The number of Americans filing weekly benefits unexpectedly fell to 192,000 versus an expected 200,000.
“The trend in claims remains very low and stable, although weekly prints are noisy and subject to the influence of weather, which was warmer than normal last week,” said Ian Shepherdson of Pantheon Macro. He added, “More broadly, the sharp rise in layoff announcements in recent months has yet to carry over into the claims numbers, although we expect that to change in the spring, with claims rising exponentially.”
On GDP, Shepherdson said: “The downward revision of GDP growth is a bit of a surprise… The monthly breakdown of the data will be published tomorrow, along with the January data; for now, all we know is that all three components have been revised.” — Durable goods, non-durable goods, and services — to the upside. That doesn’t look good, although the new data doesn’t necessarily have anything to say about what’s going to happen in the future.”
Moreover, the Chicago Fed’s National Activity Index indicated growth in January.
Market participants will now look to tomorrow’s CPI report for more clues about inflation and what the numbers might mean for the Fed in terms of rate hikes.
Turning to the fixed income markets, returns have been mixed. The 10-year Treasury yield (US10Y) fell 4 basis points, to 3.88%. The two-year yield (US2Y) was steady at 4.70%.
NVIDIA grabbed quite a bit of the spotlight on Thursday. Shares of the company rose more than 12% after its quarterly results beat estimates and also triggered the “AI” magic letters.
In other earnings-related moves, Domino’s Pizza (DPZ) tumbled and was the biggest percentage loser on the S&P 500 (SP500) after missing revenue forecasts and dragging down the long-term outlook.
Shares of Alibaba (Baba) fell slightly despite exceeding estimates.
“Reader. Infuriatingly humble coffee enthusiast. Future teen idol. Tv nerd. Explorer. Organizer. Twitter aficionado. Evil music fanatic.”