Stocks Climb After Hitting Fresh Records
January 26 2021 - 10:44AM
Dow Jones News
By Caitlin Ostroff and Joanne Chiu
U.S. stocks crept higher after major indexes hit records a day
earlier and investors readied for a slew of blue-chip earnings.
The S&P 500 rose 0.1%, hitting a new intraday record at
3870.90. The technology-focused Nasdaq Composite index edged 0.1%.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 0.3%.
This week marks the height of earnings season, with shares of
General Electric rallying 9.5% after the industrial conglomerate
reported forecast-beating fourth-quarter revenue and free cash
flow.
Johnson & Johnson rose 4% after it recorded stronger sales
in its latest quarter, as revenue gains from its pharmaceutical
division boosted its top-line results. Raytheon Technologies jumped
5.2% after the aerospace and defense company reported
fourth-quarter profit and revenue that beat expectations.
Starbucks, Microsoft and Texas Instruments will release results
after markets close. Major tech firms, including Apple, Tesla and
Facebook, will update investors Wednesday.
Investors will watch to see if earnings can continue to top
analysts' expectations, providing a further catalyst to push
markets higher.
"What's working in the market's favor is the overall trend of
economic growth is still robust and that's likely to translate to
positive earnings," said Shoqat Bunglawala, head of multiasset
solutions, international, at Goldman Sachs Asset Management.
"There's an expectation that there's going to be more robust growth
driven by pent up demand in the second half of the year."
Shares of GameStop rose 19% as individual traders, propelled by
social media, piled into the stock. Shares swung wildly Monday and
have gained more than 300% this year, in the latest sign that
frenetic trading by retail traders is leading to outsize market
swings.
Software and services firm BlackBerry, another favorite among
individual traders, gained 1.8% after the opening bell. Etsy rose
4.5% after Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk tweeted "I kinda love
Etsy."
In bond markets, the yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S.
Treasury note ticked up to 1.042% from 1.038% Monday. Yields rise
when prices fall.
At 10 a.m. ET, the Conference Board is due to release its index
of consumer confidence, which will show whether U.S. consumers'
outlook on the economy improved or deteriorated in January.
U.S. home-price growth continued to accelerate toward the end of
2020, data out Tuesday showed. In the year to November, the S&P
CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index, which measures
average home prices in major metropolitan areas, rose 9.5%.
The pan-continental Stoxx Europe 600 rose 0.8%. Shares of UBS
Group rose 3.1% after the Swiss bank announced a new buyback
program of up to $4.5 billion, having closed 2020 with a
consensus-beating quarterly performance.
Travel and transportation stocks were hit hard on concerns about
the speed of vaccine rollouts and the timing of some countries'
reopenings. Jet-engine maker Rolls-Royce was down 3.4% at its
lowest level of the year.
Indexes in Asia handed back some of the robust gains registered
in the first few weeks of this year. The Hang Seng Index in Hong
Kong dropped 2.6%, as heavyweight Tencent Holdings fell 6.3%,
retreating from a record high reached in the previous session. The
Shanghai Composite shed 1.5%, the Nikkei 225 retreated 1% and South
Korea's Kospi Composite lost 2.1%.
In a surprise move, the People's Bank of China withdrew 78
billion yuan, or the equivalent of $12 billion, from the Chinese
financial system through open-market operations Tuesday. The move
runs counter to expectations in the run-up to the Lunar New Year
holidays, when China's banking system usually needs more, not less,
liquidity.
Write to Caitlin Ostroff at caitlin.ostroff@wsj.com and Joanne
Chiu at joanne.chiu@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 26, 2021 10:29 ET (15:29 GMT)
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