Before The Bell
The stock market's winning ways continue, with yesterday's strong upturn being Wall Street's third in as many days this week. And once again the strength was most pronounced in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. That is a turnabout of sorts, as the blue chips mostly have lagged the other large-cap composites (the S&P 500 Index and the tech-driven NASDAQ) for much of this year. Yesterday, though, the Dow, lifted by a stronger-than-expected quarterly earnings performance from Walt Disney (DIS), led the way forward. Now, this morning, the Labor Department reported a welcome drop in new jobless claims to 1.2 million for the latest week.
Meanwhile, the latest session started out strongly en route to a wire-to-wire win for the Dow Industrials, which would add another 373 points, and in the process, break out of its recent trading range of 25,000-27,000, by ending the day at 27,201. Much smaller advances were notched by the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ. Heretofore, it has been the NASDAQ, which had led the way, due to its preponderance of technology issues. The Dow, on the other hand, had been held back by the financial, energy, and industrial stocks in its makeup.
Such sector rotation often takes hold after a multi-month upslope, as investors look to play catch-up by grabbing onto issues that have not fully participated in the better times. As to other influences besides earnings, there are the goings on in Washington, where Congress is trying to author a stimulus package that would alleviate some of the economic pain brought about by the coronavirus. With many millions of Americans now unemployed, such assistance is of high importance. To date, negotiations are in full swing. But, as yet, no deal has been structured.
Then, there is the economy, which again proved supportive. On Monday, it had been a stronger-than-forecast issuance on manufacturing activity that lifted stocks. On Tuesday, a solid gain in factory orders helped push the market higher. And yesterday, it was a good showing by the services sector, which registered a reading of 58.1 for July, up from 57.1 in June. Expectations had been for a softer result of 55. Most categories rose including new orders, backlogs, and business activity. But there was weakness in employment and prices.
On balance, though, this was a good report and was consistent with the manufacturing survey released Monday, which also was from the Institute for Supply Management. Armed with this strength and hopeful for a deal in Washington, stocks rallied throughout the day and into the close. Looking ahead to the penultimate session of the week, the focus again will be on Washington and to a lesser degree earnings, where hotel chain Hilton Worldwide (HLT) has reported results this morning and the stock is indicated to open higher, even though it posted a wider loss than expected.
But the big issues of note over the rest of the week will be tomorrow's data on employment and unemployment and the stimulus negotiations in Washington. Finally, in early dealings, the equity futures are showing a little softness ahead of the bell, as the NASDAQ, which briefly topped 11,000 yesterday, will attempt to again move above that psychologically important level.
– Harvey S. Katz, CFA
At the time of this article's writing, the author did not have positions in any of the companies mentioned.
