U.S. markets and stock exchange traded funds were higher Tuesday but began to peter out toward the end of the session as investors looked to the Federal Reserve with policymakers starting their two-day meeting.
On Tuesday, the Invesco QQQ Trust (NASDAQ: QQQ) increased 0.9%, SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (NYSEArca: DIA) was 0.1% lower and iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (NYSEArca: IVV) gained 0.3%.
“Right now, it looks to us like the economy’s going to be improving. They’re keeping interest rates low. And so it’s still a favorable environment for stocks, especially growth companies,” Tom Plumb, president and portfolio manager at Plumb Funds, told the Wall Street Journal.
Technology stocks maintained their lead, and many anticipate the U.S. equity market may still have more room to run, despite concerns over a Covid-19 vaccine, the economic recovery, and the upcoming presidential elections.
“There’s been exuberance in the tech sector and valuations are high, but M&A means some people think there’s still some assets that aren’t overvalued, they may actually be undervalued,” Ludovic Subran, chief economist at Allianz, told the WSJ. “M&A can be perceived as a sign of undervaluation” and some people will be buying.
A number of multibillion-dollar deals popped up earlier this week from well-known tech companies, bolstering the stock benchmarks and underscoring the continued role of large firms in U.S. equity markets, especially in a low-rate environment with cheap liquidity.
“The pullback we had is now behind us” probably, Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities, told Reuters. “While the economy is slowing, the upcoming macro news should be friendly, which should indicate the Fed will have no change in terms of policy.”
In its first policy meeting since Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell announced a more accommodative stance on inflation, which many interpreted as a lower-for-longer rate environment, the central bank could look turn to more Treasury purchases on the long-dated debt end to keep the pressure on long-term yields, some strategists speculated.
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