Inside Monday's Market Surge

By James Benedict

For most of 2020, thanks to the pandemic, investors couldn't get enough Peloton or Zoom, or get far away enough from airlines and energy firms. That all changed Monday. What's behind the sudden reversal of fortunes? We take a look.

U.S. stocks rose quickly Monday morning, before the S&P 500 closed at its second highest level in history.

Investors' hopes may have been bolstered by a vaccine reporting better than expected results or President-elect Joe Biden's electoral victory.

Many stocks that had excelled early in the pandemic saw drops while those that had previously performed poorly did well. Zoom Video Communications stock price rose over six hundred percent from the start of the year to last Friday's close. Monday was a different story.

Among companies in the S&P 500 whose share-price performance was flat or negative in 2020 through Friday, 93% had positive performance on Monday.

Investor sentiment could be seen outside the stock market as well. Gold futures, which serves as a haven during turbulent periods, had one its largest single-day declines in the past decade.

Meanwhile oil futures surged after a year hamstrung by falling demand. The S&P 500 Energy sector had been ravaged by the pandemic, falling 52% from the start of the year through Friday. However the sector led the overall market Monday, rising 14.2%.

Tuesday the markets opened tepidly and may indicate investors' feelings that Monday's rally was overdone.

--Kara Dapena contributed to this article.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 10, 2020 12:29 ET (17:29 GMT)

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