Dow Finishes Up 228 Points — but It Should Have Been So Much More - Barron's

This is getting exhausting, isn’t it? The ups, the downs, the all arounds, and yet it’s still nearly impossible what the market is trying to do despite obviously good news from Moderna (MRNA) on the vaccine front and Goldman Sachs (GS) earnings.

Yes, the S&P 500 rose 0.9% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 227.51 points, or 0.9%, and the Nasdaq Composite finished up 0.6%. But what is the market trying to say?

This morning it looked obvious. The Dow was surging because Goldman Sachs had knocked it out of the park and Moderna’s vaccine was heading for a Phase 3 trial, while the Nasdaq was lagging because suddenly everyone realized that tech was over-owned and, yes, earnings are coming up. Amazon.com (AMZN) finished down 2.4%.

By the end of the day, the message wasn’t so clear. Goldman finished up just 1.4% after rising more than 4% earlier in the day, and the Dow’s outperformance over the Nasdaq wasn’t much to write home about.

Thankfully, small-cap stocks exist. The Russell 2000 gained 3.5%, its largest gain in over a month. Which is kind of crazy because, you know, earnings for smallcap companies will be terrible. But small-cap stocks are composed of everything the market hates—they’re value and they’re small at a time when investors want large-cap growth.

Unfortunately, the Russell 2000 remains well below its June 8 peak, as does the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Even worse, the S&P 500 tried to break above its own June peak...and failed. The only good news to come from the good news was that stocks that would benefit from a coronavirus vaccine that Moderna is developing—cruise line Royal Caribbean (RCL), airline American Airlines (AAL) and casino MGM Resorts International (MGM) among them—shot to double-digit gains.

That could just be investors rushing to buy the worst of the worst, but it could also be something else--a sign that the market believes that life may someday return to normal.

And I’ll take that over a market breakout any day.

Write to Ben Levisohn at Ben.Levisohn@barrons.com

Let's block ads! (Why?)

"much" - Google News
July 16, 2020 at 05:10AM
https://ift.tt/3jaLKSG

Dow Finishes Up 228 Points — but It Should Have Been So Much More - Barron's
"much" - Google News
https://ift.tt/37eLLij
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update

Bagikan Berita Ini