Dow rises to 34,000 as retail sales rose 10% in March, and jobless claims hit the new pandemic

How do stock positions trade?

• The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA,
  + 0.89%
  scored 250 points, or 0.7%, to reach 33,970, after breaking an intraday record of 33,981.02.

• The S&P 500 Index SPX,
  + 0.93%
  traded 30 points higher to reach 4,154, a gain of 0.6%, which broke an intraday record at 4,156.56 near the open point.

• The Nasdaq Composite Index COMP,
  + 0.95%
  advanced 149 points, or 1.1%, to 14,008.

On Wednesday, the Dow closed 53.62 points or 0.2% to 33,730.89, the S&P 500 finished with 16.93 points or 0.4% lower at 4,126.66, while the Nasdaq Composite closed 138.26 points or 1% decreased to close at 13,857.84, 1.7% lower than its February 12 record high.

What drives the market?

A big day for earnings reports and economic data started strong on Thursday and is helped by slightly lower returns in the bond market.

U.S. retail sales rose nearly 10% in March thanks to $ 1,400 stimulus checks paid by the federal government to consumers. The government climbed 9.8% last month, the government said on Thursday. Economists polled by Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal predicted a 6.1% rise.

Due to the optimism of the market, the weekly demands for unemployment dropped to a low point in the pandemic. U.S. unemployment claims sank by 193,000 in the week of April 10, an extraordinarily large decline likely to reflect an improving economy, but also ongoing problems in processing unemployment benefit applications. Initial claims for unemployment traditionally filed by the states declined to a seasonally adjusted 576,000 from 769,000 in the previous week.

“Star unemployment claims plus the tickets have retail sales a positive one and give strong signs that the economy is in full swing to recover,” wrote Mike Loewengart, managing director of E-Trade Financial.

‘Although we have not necessarily seen the market move strongly at economic or bad levels, it is definitely a step in the right direction. And with a solid start to the earnings, the case for continued stubbornness should not be ignored, ”he said.

U.S. industrial production also rose 1.4 percent in March, after a revised 2.6 percent drop in the previous month caused by severe winter weather, the Federal Reserve said Thursday.

See: Coinbase is the Most Valuable US Stock Exchange After the First Day of Trading

Investors were also working on a first quarter report Bank of America Corp.
BAC,
-2.57%
after reporting profits, expectations more than doubled and beat, citing strong growth in capital markets and lower credit costs. The bank also announced a $ 25 billion share buyback program. Bank of America is one of the most actively traded stocks in the US market.

Quarterly results of PepsiCo PEP,
+ 0.18%,
Citigroup C,
-0.43%,
BlackRock BLK,
+ 2.44%
and Delta Luglyne DAL,
-2.99%,
was also consumed, a day after Goldman Sachs Group GS
+ 1.27%
and JPMorgan Chase JPM,
+ 0.21%
delivered good results.

Aside from earnings and the economy, some analysts said investors could be more entrenched in the faith despite rising inflation, the Federal Reserve would keep interest rates low and liquidity measures in place to stimulate the COVID-plagued economy. Doubts about the Fed’s commitment have raised the standard rate of return this year, but recently yields have stabilized, with the 10-year treasury note BX: TMUBMUSD10Y
which yielded a little over 1.60% on Thursday and traded between 1.6 and 1.75% over the past few weeks.

‘While there is a lot of excitement in equities, traders are also watching the fixed market markets. “US Treasury shows that investors are becoming more convinced of the Federal Reserve’s message that rising inflation is only temporary and will not soon lead to a tightening of policy,” said Hussein Sayed, FXTM’s chief market strategist. a note written.

In a moderate discussion sponsored by the Washington Economic Club, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the central bank is likely to cut asset purchases “well before the time we consider raising interest rates”, who disapproves of the 2013-14 playbook. “We have not yet voted on the order, but it is the sense of guidance that it would work this way,” Powell said.

Regarding the public health front, a study by the University of Oxford found that the number of people who get blood clots after being vaccinated with a coronavirus vaccine is about the same for those who Pfizer PFE en Modern MRNA vaccines as well as for the AstraZeneca AZN vaccine manufactured with the help of the university. The study comes after the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention requested to stop immediately Johnson & Johnsonsee JNJ,
+ 1.04%
one-shot COVID vaccine.

Investors are also awaiting comments from Fed speakers, including Raphael Bostic, president of Atlanta, at 11:30 Eastern, San Francisco president Mary Daly at 2 p.m. and Loretta Mester, president of Cleveland, at 4 p.m. .

In other U.S. economic data, the Philadelphia Federal Reserve’s manufacturing index rose in April to a reading of 50.2 from a revised 44.5 in the previous month, which was the highest level in nearly 50 years. Economists expected a reading of 42 after the first reading for March of 51.8, according to a Wall Street Journal survey among economists.

Separately, the New York Federal Reserve’s Empire State Index rose in April to a reading of 26.3 from 17.4 in March, the New York Fed said – its highest reading since October 2017.

Which companies are in focus?

• Shares of Coinbase Global
  COIN,
  + 1.82%
  climbed on Thursday, a day after the cryptocurrency platform became the most valuable US stock market on Wednesday amid strong demand for its newly listed stock. The shares rose by about 4%.

• ARK Invest bought an exchange of currency Coinbase Global COIN, which became known on Wednesday, for three of the ARK exchange-traded funds, including the flagship ARK Innovation ETF ARKK. ARK Invest bought Coinbase shares worth $ 246 million for the ARK Innovation ETF, ARK Next Generation Internet ETF ARKW en ARK Fintech Innovation ETF ARKF. Cathie Wood, CEO of ARK Invest, spoke in an interview with Bloomberg BNN on Wednesday about Coinbase’s potential as well as volatility. Shares of Ark Innovation rose 1.2%.

• Shares of UnitedHealth Group Inc.. UNH jumped more than 3% into a record high on Thursday, after the healthcare company reported first-quarter earnings and revenue that rose above expectations and boosted its outlook for the full year.

• PepsiCo Inc. says its profit has risen for the past quarter as sales increased. The stock rose 0.2%.

• Tapestry Inc. TPR said on Thursday it had made Todd Kahn with immediate effect its permanent CEO and brand president of Coach, elevating him to the role he has served since July 2020 on an interim basis. Its share rose by 1%.

• Kimco Realty Corp. KIM on Thursday announced an agreement to buy Weingarten Realty Investors WRI in a cash and stock deal that values ​​the owner of malls-anchored malls at about $ 3.9 billion. Kimco’s shares fell 0.7%, while Weingarten’s shares rose more than 9%.

• Dell Technologies Ing. DELL shares rose 4.6% after the computer maker said it had finally acquired a majority stake in VMware Inc. VMW. VMware shares were flat.

• TuSimple Holdings Inc. TSP will be announced on Thursday, after the initial public offering of the self-propelled truck manufacturer cost $ 40 per share, above the expected range of between $ 35 and $ 39 per share.

How are other assets doing?

• The ICE-US dollar index DXY, -0.04%, a measure of the currency against a basket of six major competitors, fell to 91.622 less than 0.1%.

• U.S. crude for May delivery, CL.1, fell slightly from a four-week high, 0.3% lower at $ 62.94 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

• The 10-year Treasury yield BX: TMUBMUSD10Y shook off 3 basis points to 1.60%. Bond prices move inversely to yields.

• Gold futures traded higher as bond yields fell, with the June contract GCM21 rising 0.9% to $ 1,752.10 per ounce.

• In Europe, the Stoxx 600 index SXXP rose 0.4%, while the FTSE 100 UKX traded 0.6% higher in London.

• In Asia, Shanghai’s SHCOMP fell 0.5%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng HSI closed down 0.4% and Japan’s Nikkei 225 picked up less than 0.1%.