Stocks were mixed on Monday, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq rising to notch fresh record levels, as traders looked ahead to more key economic data later this week.
The S&P 500 rose to fresh intraday and closing highs, building on gains after the blue-chip index posted its best week since February.The Nasdaq also rose to fresh record levels and extended gains to nearly 1%.The Dow dropped.
Treasury yields sank across of the curve, with the benchmark 10-year Treasury yield dipping below 1.48%.Major cryptocurrencies steadied after sliding last week, and bitcoin ( BTC-USD ) and ethereum ( ETH-USD ), the two largest cryptocurrencies by market cap, each advanced.
Investors this week will be focused on a busy economic calendar headlined by the June jobs report on Friday .Consensus economists are looking for payroll gains to accelerate to 700,000 in June with an unemployment rate down slightly to 5.7%, with these metrics improving against May’s payroll gains of 559,000 and jobless rate of 5.8%.
Stocks are coming into this week with the momentum of a record-setting run last week, with both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq setting fresh all-time highs.This in turn came as traders considered a new compromise deal reached on infrastructure in the Biden administration, and a Fed outlook that suggested central bank officials would move to stave off possibly longer-lasting inflation with interest hikes in the next two years.
“We finally have a few catalysts that are pushing this market forward,” Jay Jacobs, senior vice president and head of research and strategy at Global X ETFs, told Yahoo Finance.
“We had a pretty trend-less May and the beginning of June, but now we have the Fed recognizing inflation and pulling forward its interest rate increases, which should fight it.
And now we have the infrastructure bill that Biden has agreed with with bipartisan senators.So that’s two really positive catalysts that I think are going to continue to propel the markets into the summer.”
Story continues And in the coming weeks, investors will also have the backdrop of what is setting up to be another strong batch of quarterly corporate earnings results, with a greater number of companies poised to have benefitted from the broadening vaccinations and economic reopenings taking place in the second quarter.As of Friday, 66 of 103 S&P 500 companies that issued earnings per share guidance for the second quarter offered a positive outlook that exceeded consensus estimates, according to FactSet data.This would mark the highest number of S&P 500 companies offering an estimates-topping outlook ever recorded in data going back to 2006.
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4:07 p.m.ET: S&P 500, Nasdaq set fresh all-time highs; Dow drops 151 points, or 0.4% as Boeing shares weigh Here were the main moves in markets as of 4:07 p.m.ET:
S&P 500 ( ^GSPC ) : +9.91 (+0.23%) to 4,290.61
Dow ( ^DJI ) : -150.57 (-0.44%) to 34,283.27
Nasdaq ( ^IXIC ) : +140.12 (+0.98%) to 14,500.51
Crude ( CL=F ) : -$1.20 (-1.62%) to $72.85 a barrel
Gold ( GC=F ) : +$0.90 (+0.05%) to $1,778.70 per ounce
10-year Treasury ( ^TNX ) : -5.8 bps to yield 1.4780%
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3:17 p.m.ET: Facebook shares rally, stock reaches $1 trillion market cap after FTC antitrust case dismissed by judge Shares of Facebook ( FB ) jumped more than 3% to a record high of more than $350 per share on Monday after a federal court dismissed a Federal Trade Commission antitrust complaint against the social media company.
The court said the FTC had not proved Facebook operated a monopoly, though the decision to dismiss only the complaint suggests the FTC could also re-file its complaint.
The share price jump brought the stock’s market capitalization above $1 trillion, bringing it in the realm of peer big tech stocks including Amazon and Alphabet, which have also crossed the $1 trillion valuation threshold.
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1:40 p.m.ET: ‘There is a high-volatility regime story’ that could come into play in the markets this summer: PNC Financial After a strong start to 2021 for U.S.
equities, investors should brace for some choppiness for the rest of the year, especially as monetary and fiscal policy support systems begin get pulled back, according to some strategists.
“It isn’t obvious to me that there is one specific catalyst that could derail this market,” Amanda Agati, PNC Financial Services chief investment officer, told Yahoo Finance.”But if you look at historical standards and stats, it’s been a very calm market environment.
And so as a natural course of healthy market functioning and behavior, we would expect to see a little bit more choppiness than what we’ve seen.And I think a lot of it can be chalked up to the stimulus and the liquidity that’s been sitting in the system.
So as that starts to recede, we do think that things are going to get choppy.”
“We might be looking for a calm, peaceful summer, but I’m not convinced we’re going to get it,” she added.“There is a high-volatility regime story that is going to continue to take hold here over the course of the summer and into the back half of the year.”
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1:29 p.m.ET: Shares of payments company Payoneer hit the Nasdaq after SPAC merger Payoneer shares ( PAYO ) began trading publicly on the Nasdaq on Monday after the company completed a merger with the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) FTAC Olympus Acquisition Corp.The payments company provides services to online sellers and platforms including Amazon, and has said it expects to bring in $432 million in revenue in 2021 versus the $95 million seen in 2020.
The SPAC deal to bring it public was valued at $3.3 billion.
“We’ve spent 15 years building this platform, building a global team, building a global brand, and then last year we saw this acceleration of digital commerce all over the world,” Scott Galit, Payoneer CEO, told Yahoo Finance Live on Monday .”This was the time for Payoneer to actually move into the public markets, access more capital and really accelerate our own investments to be able to help more businesses and more places around the world take advantage of these new digital trends.”
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12:42 p.m.ET: Four outcomes that could emerge if inflation does not prove transitory: Goldman Sachs While concerns over elevated inflation have receded in recent weeks, investors are still closely monitoring inflation data for signs of lasting price increases that could ultimately negatively impact equities.
According to economists from Goldman Sachs, inflation likely will prove transitory, with the core consumer price index (CPI) falling to 2.3% next year after surging by 3.8% in May.High inflation that lasts longer than expected, however, could have a number of implications for equities, according to Goldman Sachs strategist David Kostin:
In a higher-inflation environment, corporate sales would increase while profits would decrease.
According to Goldman Sachs’ calculations, “Each percentage point of core CPI inflation above our forecast would lift S&P 500 sales growth by about 1 percentage point,[and] reduce net profit margins by about 10 bp [basis points].”
Valuations would also likely come down, given that elevated inflation would prompt the Federal Reserve to tighten monetary policy and raise interest rates, Kostin added.
Stocks would likely post less of a return in a high-inflation environment than if inflation proved shorter-lived.”Since 1960, the median annualized real S&P 500 return during periods of low inflation has been 15% vs.
9% in periods of high inflation,” according to Kostin.
And finally, stocks with greater pricing power would probably outperform those with less pricing power.Kostin highlighted that high inflation has historically helped the health-care, energy, real estate and consumer staples sectors outperform.
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10:40 a.m.ET: ‘We firmly believe there is still more room to run’ for stocks: BMO Capital Markets With the S&P 500 already up 14% for the year-to-date and logged a number of new all-time highs, some investors have begun to question how much further the current equity rise may have to run.But according to BMO Capital Markets’ Brian Belski, the market still has fresh catalysts on its way, largely in the form of strong earnings.
“Although some investors are suggesting this is ‘as good as it gets’ for U.S.stocks, we firmly believe there is still more room to run in the months ahead, with our S&P 500 year-end target price of 4,500 implying 5.5% upside from current levels,” Belski said in a note.
“However, we anticipate the second half of the year will be more of a grind higher rather than a straight shot, with bouts of volatility and choppiness in between as the reopening/cyclical trade matures and investors begin to digest the implications of an earnings-driven market,” he added.
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9:36 a.m.ET: Stocks open mostly higher, S&P 500 and Nasdaq set fresh record highs The three major indexes were mixed at the open Monday morning, with the Dow trading lower while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq moved up to reach all-time highs.
The information technology sector led gains in the S&P 500, while the cyclical industrials, financials and energy sectors lagged.
The Nasdaq outperformed as tech stocks gained, with the index moving higher by 0.7%.
U.S.West Texas intermediate crude oil futures retreated but still hovered near a two-year high of over $73 per barrel.Gold prices ticked up, while the 10-year Treasury yield fell by 4.4 basis points to yield 1.492%.
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7:25 a.m.ET Monday: Stock futures trade mixed Here’s where markets were trading ahead of the opening bell on Monday:
S&P 500 futures ( ES=F ) : 4,272.75, +1.5 points (+0.04%)
Dow futures ( YM=F ) : 34,301.00, -32 points (-0.09%)
Nasdaq futures ( NQ=F ): 14,372.25, +33.25 points (+0.23%)
Crude ( CL=F ) : -$0.07 (-0.09%) to $73.98 a barrel
Gold ( GC=F ) : -$0.20 (-0.01%) to $1,777.60 per ounce
10-year Treasury ( ^TNX ) : -2.7 bps to yield 1.509%
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – MAY 11: People walk by the New York Stock Exchange after global stocks fell as concerns mount that rising inflation will prompt central banks to tighten monetary policy on May 11, 2021 in New York City.By mid afternoon the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite had lost 0.6% after falling 2.2% at its session low.(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) —
Emily McCormick is a reporter for Yahoo Finance.
Follow her on Twitter: @emily_mcck
Read more from Emily:
Inflation: Is it transitory or not?
May jobs report: Economy adds back 559,000 jobs, unemployment rate fell to 5.8%
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