Before The Bell
Wall Street entered the penultimate trading day of this holiday shortened week with a fresh buying burst, as equity investors sought to extend a rally that had added more than 1,000 points to the aggregate increase in the Dow Jones Industrial Average so far during this four-day span. By the end of the first half hour of trading, the blue chips already were up by more than 100 points, and the market would generally trend higher from there, largely holding onto a 100-200 points advance into the final hour of the session.
Behind the latest rise for much of the day, the third in three sessions so far this week, was better news on the jobs front. To be sure, the pace of layoffs continued to rise in the latest seven-day span, with the 2.1 million uptick bringing the total number of new jobless to 41 million over the latest nine weeks. The 2.1 million increase was above the consensus addition of 2.05 million, but was the lowest total in weeks. Also, continuing claims, which represent a better unemployment picture, fell by almost four million in the most recent week.
The descent in continuing jobless claims was the first such decline in weeks and added to the building optimism about the economy as new reopening activity continues. Also encouraging yesterday was a reversal in oil prices, as warmer weather and the accelerating pace of the reopening has increased the demand for gasoline. In all, West Texas Intermediate crude rose by 2.7% in late dealings. In other economic news yesterday, the government reported that orders for durable goods plunged by 17.2% in April, further attesting to the severe business slump.
Finally, on the economic release front, the Commerce Department reported that the U.S. gross domestic product had contracted by 5.0% in the first quarter. That was the second estimate for the period; the growth initial report (issued a month ago) had shown a 4.8% drop. The fourth quarter of 2019 had seen GDP rise 2.1%, Expectations are that second-quarter GDP will tumble by 30%, or more. Meanwhile, the market continued to look beyond these generally weak reports and headed higher until the final hour of trading.
At that time, the stock market did an about face and headed lower, giving back a session-best 210 point advance in the Dow and falling to a closing loss in that index of 148 points--for more than a 350-point turnaround. The S&P 500 and the NASDAQ also ended lower. The late drop came after the President announced he would hold a news conference today regarding China, and most likely its dealings with Hong Kong. There were obvious fears among investors that tough measures could be enacted.
Now, a new day has dawned. And after some early gains in the futures last evening, the market looks likely to open the final trading day of the week in a somewhat choppy fashion as any actions by our country in regard to China loom.
– Harvey S. Katz, CFA
At the time of this article's writing, the author did not have positions in any of the companies mentioned.
