Before The Bell
Following back-to-back steep losses to start the new trading week, in which the Dow Jones Industrial Average surrendered 592 points and 632 points, respectively, the stock market opened yesterday's session strongly to the upside, with the Dow climbing by more than 400 points in the first few minutes of trading. The gains in the blue chips then would hold in the 400-500-point range through the rest of the morning and into the first part of the afternoon. The NASDAQ was doing even better, proportionately, gaining more than 200 points.
Behind this midweek comeback was a rebound in crude oil prices. The ebb and flow of this volatile commodity has seemingly replaced the coronavirus as the focal point of equity traders this week. Investors also were weighing first-quarter earnings to see how U.S. companies were faring during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic. As to oil, prices surged by more than 20% on West Texas Intermediate crude. Of course, the 20% jump comes from very depressed levels following two straight days in which oil prices plummeted.
In other news, traders were considering signs that small businesses would soon get more relief after the Senate passed a $484 billion legislative aid package. The Administration also is considering federal stimulus funds to aid the beleaguered U.S. energy companies. Meantime, among individual companies, such Dow stalwarts as Intel (INTC) and McDonald's (MCD) were up strongly yesterday, as were shares of Johnson & Johnson (JNJ). But the big story yesterday was the comeback in oil prices.
As for other influences on the day's action, forecasters are saying that the recovery from the business downturn will be a labored one, with a multi-year struggle quite likely for some sectors. Regarding the path of COVID-19, U.S. cases now total more than 800,000 and deaths are over the 45,000 mark, even as the upslope in this disease seems to be flattening out in some hot spots. Despite such dour news, the market has managed to overcome some earlier April headwinds and make an uncertain recovery to this point.
The stock market then would continue its midweek recovery, as the Dow pressed still higher through the middle of the afternoon and into the session's final stages. In fact, the buyers would be in there until just before the close, as the Dow would rise by nearly 600 points at the day's peak. The final few minutes would then see some profit taking, which would pare the final gains in that composite to 456 points. The S&P 500 would climb by 63 points and the NASDAQ, on strength in tech, would add 232 points.
The minor profit taking at the close may have reflected some skittishness ahead of the just-issued report on new jobless claims. Expectations had been that such filings, which totaled just over 22 million over the prior four-week span, had been expected to increase by 4.3 million in the latest week, came in with an increase of 4.4 million. Oil prices, meantime, have ticked up further. Finally, the equity futures, which had eased modestly last night, are now pointing to a slightly higher opening when trading resumes shortly.
- Harvey S. Katz, CFA
At the time of this article's writing, the author had positions in INTC.
