^GSPC - S&P 500
| Previous Close | 2,948.51 |
| Open | 2,948.05 |
| Volume | 2,185,305,113 |
| Day's Range | 2,933.59 - 2,956.76 |
| 52 Week Range | 2,191.86 - 3,393.52 |
| Avg. Volume | 6,247,141,587 |
Yahoo Finance VideoMarket Recap: Friday, May 22
Stocks ended little changed Friday, as ongoing signs of the economic damage from the coronavirus pandemic compounded with fears of rising U.S.-China tensions. Still, the three major U.S. equity indices posted weekly advances of about 3%, with investors largely factoring in the fallout from the COVID-19 crisis into asset prices.
Yahoo Finance VideoGetting your 401K back on track post COVID-19
Alex Reffett, Principal at East Paces Group, joins The Final Round to discuss how Baby boomers and Gen-Xers can work to recoup their market losses for retirement.
Yahoo Finance VideoChina aims to tighten control over Hong Kong with security proposal
The Conference Board Senior Economist Erik Lundh joins Yahoo Finance’s Brian Cheung and Zack Guzman to discuss China's plans set up national security agencies in Hong Kong and the growing tensions between Beijing and Washington.
- FX Empire
S&P 500 Looks Set To Test The 3000 Level
S&P; 500 is supported by the unprecedented monetary stimulus and expectations that interest rates will stay low for years to come.
- FX Empire
Stock Market Analysis: The Bulls Took Over the Reins, Again
Thursday’s decline didn’t land in good company of Friday as stocks refused to decline, and actually reverted back above the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement.
- FX Empire
Strong Buying of WTI: Subdued Gold Interest
The Commitments of Traders report covering positions held and changes made by money managers in the week to May 19 found that speculators maintained strong buying interest in energy and metals at the expense of the agriculture sector. Top three buys were WTI crude oil, natural gas and gold while selling was topped by corn, soybeans and wheat.
- FX Empire
Ray Dalio Suggests USA Is Entering A Period Of Decline And New World Order
Throughout history, the biggest world empires are structured, grow into superpowers, and begin to decline. Most of these last well over 200 to 250+ years.
- Motley Fool
Why Index ETFs Are a New Investor's Best Friend
Investing in the stock market can be daunting, particularly if you're a beginner. Especially right now, when the stock market recently closed out one of its worst first quarters in history due to the coronavirus pandemic, it can be intimidating to figure out where to begin. Fortunately, there are plenty of beginner-friendly investment choices out there, and index ETFs are among the best of the best.
- Motley Fool
Is ExxonMobil Stock a Buy Right Now?
The sentiment for the oil and gas sector is bad. But savvy investors can see that ExxonMobil is a better buy now than it was a few months ago.
- Motley Fool
3 Things to Watch in the Stock Market This Week
Both the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES: ^DJI) and the S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) rose over 3%. Costco's stock has outperformed during the recent market slump thanks to its persistently strong operating trends. The chain's earnings report on Thursday will include other important metrics like membership fee income, customer traffic, and subscriber renewal rates in both the U.S and international segments.
- Bloomberg
The Dow Is Getting Crushed in the Recovery Trade
(Bloomberg) -- This week marks a milestone for the Dow Jones Industrial Average: its 124th birthday. Not that anyone watching markets needs a reminder it’s getting old.Wrinkles show in the gaping divide between the venerable gauge and its younger brethren. Like many grandparents, it’s struggling to keep up with tech. Plunges in Boeing Co. -- its biggest member at the start of February -- were very costly, and some wonder if the benchmark represents the 21st century economy at all, especially in the coronavirus age.“The Dow has been on its way out for years,” said John Ham, associate adviser at New England Investment and Retirement Group. “Obviously it’s going to stick around just because so many people are familiar with it. But as far as relevancy goes, it’s your grandfather’s index.”Rarely have differences among indexes been more stark than they are now, in a market where the outbreak has made heroes of New Economy firms. Deprived of their benefits, the Dow remains down 14% in 2020 and was off 35% at its worst point. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq 100 has gained more than 7% this year, and the S&P 500 is 9% away from a positive return.Of course, the Dow has been consigned to history before, and survived. While it might be showing its age now, brief divergences among broad indexes are extremely common, and over long enough intervals they tend to even out.“Yes it is old,” said Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at S&P Dow Jones Indices. “If you constructed something today, you would probably do it differently. But it’s worked for 124 years. Even currently. And it is a much smaller portfolio yet it does track over time to the broader S&P 500.”Judging an index by whether it rises more than another misconstrues the purpose of stock benchmarks, which is to measure the progress of a market. The S&P 500’s edge over the Dow in 2020 doesn’t make it a better or more useful tool. It does, however, shine a light on what in the economy is calling the shots during the lockdown -- online and automated companies like Amazon.com Inc. and Netflix Inc.Divergences among the gauges also matter to the masses of investors who invest in funds that track them. Roughly $11.2 trillion is indexed or benchmarked to the S&P 500, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices, and $4.6 trillion in passively managed assets are tied to it. About $31.5 billion is benchmarked to the Dow, with $28.2 billion of passively managed funds linked.Thanks to tech’s dominance, those divisions are getting especially pronounced. Less than halfway through the year, the Nasdaq has already outperformed the Dow by a full percentage point on 17 different days. That’s more than in any full year since 2009, data compiled by Bloomberg show.A lot of the discrepancy boils down to which companies don’t make the Dow’s cut. Take Amazon.com, for example, whose 35% gain this year has accounted for almost half of the Nasdaq’s advance and 10% of the S&P 500’s. Because of the stock’s $2,500 price tag, the Dow’s old-fashioned price-weighting system makes it impossible to let Amazon in.Other high-fliers that have proved themselves in a stay-at-home world also don’t appear in the Dow. Nvidia Corp., Netflix Inc. and PayPal Holdings Inc. -- all winners in the coronavirus age -- are each up at least 30% this year. The venerable Dow has gotten none of that boost.“If all you’re following is the Dow, you’re missing some big components,” said Ryan Detrick, senior market strategist for LPL Financial. “I hate to say it’s old, but there’s no question that it’s behind the times if you look at the way it’s broken down.”The Dow Jones Industrial Average, created on May 26, 1896, is different from other indexes. It’s weighted by share price rather than market cap, which is more commonly used today. Such methodology essentially rules out inclusion of several of the largest companies in the world, among them Google parent Alphabet Inc., whose shares trade above $1,000 and would likely take up too much of the index.A committee chooses members, not an objective, rules-based process. According to Dow Jones Averages methodology papers found on its website, the Dow seeks to maintain “adequate sector representation” and favors a company that “has an excellent reputation, demonstrates sustained growth and is of interest to a large number of investors.”As a result, a company like jet-maker Boeing Co., down 60% this year, is more influential on the Dow’s performance than even the fourth largest American company, Alphabet, is on the S&P 500’s returns. Industrial firms, as the name of the index suggests, make up a notable 13% of the Dow -- 5 percentage points more than the sector’s weight in the S&P 500 and 11 percentage points more than the Nasdaq.Such focus has hurt in a pandemic-arranged stock market, where closed factories and shuttered economies have left industrials as one of the worst performing groups. The emphasis on the old-age economy is all the more striking in a world where companies that can operate with little face-to-face contact excel and a technological shift is accelerated.“That’s the unique nature of this particular recession, and it’s coming from the virus,” said Luke Tilley, chief economist at Wilmington Trust Corp. “If you take those contours of both big companies tend to have a buffer because of their access to capital markets and then you compound what is expected to be a dramatic change to the economy, you can get that bifurcated performance.”That leaves another way to view the index gap: the Dow is perhaps the stock gauge that is most representative of the broad economy precisely because it’s not dominated by these megacap firms. Surging shares of Amazon or Netflix certainly don’t reflect an America with over 20 million people unemployed and a collapse in spending.While the S&P 500 and Nasdaq may be methodologically optimized for a stay-at-home world, the Dow is certainly not.“Covid is actually amplifying all types of inequalities in the economy but the inequality in the market in terms of market concentration is also being amplified,” said Nela Richardson, an investment strategist at Edward Jones. “That rally is highly concentrated in a handful of firms. Most firms are still in bear territory.”For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- FX Empire
Predictive Modeling Suggests US Markets 12% Over Valued
It is very likely, based on this research, that a downside price move to levels just above recent lows will take place over the next 5+ weeks.
- Zacks
Why Is Patterson-UTI (PTEN) Up 22.8% Since Last Earnings Report?
Patterson-UTI (PTEN) reported earnings 30 days ago. What's next for the stock? We take a look at earnings estimates for some clues.
- Reuters
Wall Street Week Ahead - Investors look beyond drug makers as hunt for Covid-19 treatment heats up
Investors are diversifying bets in the healthcare sector, as the rush to develop treatments for Covid-19 has driven up prices for some pharmaceutical stocks. A record 48% of fund managers are overweight healthcare stocks, a BofA survey showed, and the S&P 500 healthcare sector is up nearly 34% since its March low. In recent weeks, news of potential treatments or vaccines to fight the pandemic have occasionally fueled swings in broader markets.
- Yahoo Finance
Stock market news live updates: Stocks end mixed, but rise on the week, as US-China tensions mount
Stocks edged down Friday morning as ongoing signs of the economic damage from the coronavirus pandemic compounded with fears of rising U.S.-China tensions. A slew of quarterly corporate earnings results came in mixed.
- Bloomberg
Stock Believers Just Won’t Let Go of a Rally for History Books
(Bloomberg) -- For speculators, nothing is as bland as a trading range, in which an index darts up and down without going anywhere. But a market that resists big moves is also signaling consensus, and this one seems to be saying the S&P 500’s surge since March is justified.With the benchmark locked in a 200-point band for a month, rank-and-file investors are showing less skepticism than the pundit class over the sustainability of equities’ epic recovery. That’s saying a lot, considering the force of that bounce, currently the third-fastest of the last century.For all the warnings about valuations and the pace of gains, the S&P 500 just bumped into the upper boundary of its range for the third time since April. Investors have had ample time to reconsider the rally -- and haven’t.“There is a consensus that forms that if we get these positive pieces of news, people are willing to pay,” said Yousef Abbasi, global market strategist at INTL FCStone. “Most of the investors I speak to are still relatively cautious or bearish, but just because they’re talking one way doesn’t mean they’re acting that way.”Up about 3% over five days, the S&P 500 erased its loss from the previous week, shrugging off an escalation in U.S.-China tensions and dismal data on housing and the labor market. Both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite Index climbed for a second week in three, each adding about 3%.The back-and-forth follows two months of violent moves, in which the S&P 500 plunged into its fastest bear market on record before coming about half the way back. Up 32% from the March trough, the index has produced a rebound that at this time of a cycle beats all but two of the previous 13 bear markets.To be sure, going by what they say and own, investors remain defensive. About 68% of money managers in the latest Bank of America survey called the rebound a bear-market rally, or a short and fast bounce that will eventually fall apart.Mutual funds are clinging to stocks with strong balance sheets, boosting holdings in health-care and technology, while shunning companies most sensitive to economic swings. Such rotations reflect skepticism around the growth recovery, Goldman Sachs strategists including Arjun Menon and David Kostin wrote in a note.Read more: Hedge Funds Playing Defense Ramp Up Stock Exposures to 2010 HighCaution would seem warranted in light of the vacuum of information that exists about the future. Among some 310 companies that discussed full-year guidance during the latest reporting season, roughly two-thirds suspended forecasts and one-fifth lowered outlooks, data compiled by Citigroup show.“The fear is the markets have run too far too fast with little in the way in a fundamental catalyst to support the 30% rally,” Candice Bangsund, portfolio manager of global asset allocation at Fiera Capital Corp., said by phone. “With markets trading at these lofty valuation levels, we’re vulnerable to disappointment being that a lot of the good news has already been priced in.”Indeed, stocks now sit at the highest multiple since the dot-com bubble, trading at 21 times forecast earnings. The elevation is one big bearish case cited by the likes of David Tepper and Stan Druckenmiller in bashing the rally.As always, the rebuttal points to massive support from central banks globally, with their liquidity injection prompting investors to take on risky bets. Over the past eight weeks, the Federal Reserve and its counterparts around the world have been buying $2.4 billion of financial assets per hour, according to data compiled by Bank of America.“Why would anyone expect stocks to price rationally?” BofA strategists led by Michael Hartnett wrote in a note. “Government and corporate bonds have been fixed by central banks.”To Quincy Krosby, chief market strategist at Prudential Financial, the ability of the market to stand firm amid surging unemployment and sagging profits is a sign that investors are waiting for some good news to step in and buy.“Keeping it in this trading range is still constructive,” Krosby said. “The S&P is waiting for that catalyst to break through and move higher.”For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg
Stocks Close Volatile Week Higher; Crude Oil Falls: Markets Wrap
(Bloomberg) -- U.S. stocks rallied into the close of trading after whipsawing investors during a volatile week that featured optimism over the reopening of the economy and a renewal of trade tensions. The dollar strengthened and oil snapped a six-day winning streak.The S&P 500 index swung between gains and losses before finishing up 0.2%. Technology shares helped the Nasdaq Composite outperform, while Caterpillar and Johnson & Johnson weighed on the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Today’s volatility came as traders braced for tension between Washington and Beijing to escalate after China announced plans to impose a national security law on Hong Kong.“It’s been liquidity driven,” said Candice Bangsund, portfolio manager of global asset allocation at Fiera Capital Corp. “We’ve seen unprecedented support from policy makers and that’s what’s been driving the recent gains, and reopening of major economies.”Investors took some comfort after U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases chief Anthony Fauci said he doesn’t support a prolonged lockdown.The Stoxx Europe 600 Index edged lower as the risk-off tone took hold earlier in Asia, where Hong Kong’s benchmark stock index plunged more than 5% amid a broad selloff. The yuan dipped as China’s National People’s Congress abandoned its decades-long practice of setting an annual target for economic growth amid uncertainty unleashed by the coronavirus pandemic.The prospect of fresh turmoil in Hong Kong following sweeping national security legislation introduced by China comes as the relationship between the world’s two biggest economies appears to be souring. The S&P 500 closed lower on Thursday, with signs mounting that President Donald Trump will make his tough stance on China a key element of his re-election bid. Beijing responded to accusations from Trump, warning that it will safeguard its sovereignty, security and interests, and threatened countermeasures.It all risks choking the rally that took global equities up about 30% from the March lows, spurred by stimulus measures and optimism for a swift economic recovery from the virus.“The market is exhibiting signs of exhaustion,” said Yousef Abbasi, global market strategist at INTL FCStone. “That makes sense considering how v-shaped the recovery in stocks has been.”Meanwhile, the pound weakened for a third day as data showed retail sales in the U.K. dropped by almost a fifth in April.Elsewhere, gold rose. The Australian dollar dipped as Fitch Ratings Ltd. cut the country’s rating outlook to negative. Indian bonds rallied after an unscheduled rate cut.These are some of the main moves in markets:For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
- Zacks
Buy FAANG Stocks, Plus MSFT as Big Tech Drives Coronavirus Market Rally?
The episode dives into FAANG stocks--Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google--plus Microsoft to see if investors should buy any of the stocks as big tech continues to drive the current coronavirus market rally...
- Zacks
Looking Ahead to a Coronavirus-Damaged Q2 Earnings Season
Looking Ahead to a Coronavirus-Damaged Q2 Earnings Season
- Zacks
Is it the Right Time to Invest in Minimum Volatility ETFs?
Low-volatility products could be intriguing choices for those who want to stay invested in equities during unstable market conditions.
- FX Empire
S&P 500 Preview – Earnings Resume on Tuesday May 25, After the Memorial Day Holiday
Retail earnings continue
- FX Empire
S&P 500 Weekly Price Forecast – Stock Markets Continue to Consolidate
The S&P; 500 rallied a bit during the week, reaching towards the 50 week EMA. The 3000 level of course offers a lot of attention above as well.
