After a torrid selloff to end the day Tuesday, stocks and index ETFs are climbing higher again on Wednesday as shares of the key tech companies recovered some of their most significant losses from the previous session, and the majority of sectors are green in early Wednesday trading.
The S&P 500 nearly nicked the all-time high made in February before dropping sharply into the close on Tuesday.
“A combination of the S&P 500 Index making its first real attempt at an all-time record high after seven straight days of advances, its old leadership — technology and FAANGs — continuing a recent trend of struggling and another day without an agreement nor even renewed talks in DC regarding a new stimulus package finally caught up with the stock market,” Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at the Leuthold Group, told CNBC. “The first signs of trouble today brought a lot of selling by investors anxious to lock-in recent gains.”
Following a rough close to the session Tuesday however, the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 265 points higher, or 1% in Wednesday morning trading, while the S&P 500 added 1.36%. The recently beaten down Nasdaq Composite rallied 2%.
The major stock index ETFs are trading higher along with their underlying benchmarks Wednesday. The SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (DIA), SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY), are both showing moderate gains while the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) has advanced 2.25%.
“There’s a big debate happening in the market right now,” said Yousef Abbasi, global market strategist at StoneX. “Does the tech outperformance continue? Or does hope around a vaccine, a better-than-expected Q2 earnings season and the hope the strong economic data continues to hold up start to justify the idea that some froth should probably come out of tech?”
Abbasi remarked that the financials sector is an area where investors have “some interesting levers they can pull to actually generate decent performance, particularly if you believe the economy will continue to recover.”
Vaccine developments are also helping to drive markets higher, with President Trump claiming late Tuesday that the U.S. government will buy 100 million doses of Moderna’s experimental coronavirus vaccine, which is currently in late-stage human trials. The ALPS Medical Breakthroughs ETF (SBIO) advanced 1.67% amid the news.
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