Wall Street Close: Another positive day on strong earnings
- US stocks post gains amid economic optimism, upbeat earnings.
- Chipotle Mexican Grill becomes the gainer of the day, Netflix dropped.
- US policymakers jostle over infrastructure spending bill, budget.
- ECB, covid headlines and weekly US Jobless Claims will be crucial for fresh impulse.
Wall Street had another upbeat session as firmer company results renewed market optimism amid a light calendar on Wednesday. In doing so, investors shrugged off the coronavirus woes as well as uncertainty over the US President Joe Biden’s infrastructure spending bill and budget.
Among the top-notch earnings, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Verizon Communications and Interpublic Group were the gainers. On the contrary, Netflix had to bear the burden of late Tuesday’s results whereas United Airlines reacted to the positive results conveyed the previous day.
Amid these plays, Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) gained 0.83% or 286 points to 34,798 whereas S&P 500 added 35 points to end the day around 4,358. Above all, Nasdaq led the run-up with a 0.92% daily gain, or 133 points, before closing around 14,632.
US Treasury yields also followed the suit and rose for the second consecutive day to regain 1.23% by the end of the North American session of Wednesday.
Although the coronavirus woes remain on the table, with multi-day high numbers in Australia and fears of Delta covid variant spread in the West, policymakers seem to be positive over tackling the pandemic. This is somewhat on the line of World Health Organisation (WHO) head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus who said, per Reuters, “The world's leading economies could bring the covid-19 pandemic under control in months.”
On the other hand, the US spending deadlines are inching closer and the policymakers are pushed to discuss a fresh budget to avoid government office closure. However, the diplomats are yet to mark any progress on the same, not to forget flashing mixed signals over the infrastructure spending bill with initial block to opening debate.
Looking forward, the pre-ECB trading lull may bore the markets but the covid updates and stimulus news can offer intermediate moves. Also in the pipeline were the second-tier data like weekly US Jobless Claims, Chicago Fed National Activity Index and US Existing Home Sales figures.
While the ECB may have to reiterate the bearish bias to disappoint the equity bulls, the scheduled data may offer little direction to the markets.
Read: Forex Today: Dollar eases, ECB looms