US Stock Indexes End Week On Positive Note; Energy, Real Estate Gain

Summary

• Dow Jones was up 0.98 points, NASDAQ gained 0.07%, and S&P 500 shed 0.19%.
• Energy, basic materials, real estate, financials, and industrials lead the session.
• US manufacturing output rose by 1.0% in January, maintaining a steady growth.

US stock markets ended Friday’s session on a positive note, buoyed by encouraging manufacturing data and brightening prospects of economic recovery as investors bet big on energy, and real estate.

The S&P 500 shed 0.19% to 3906.71. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.98 points to 31494.32. The NASDAQ Composite Index gained 0.07% to 13874.46 and the small-cap Russell 2000 ticked up 2.18% to 2266.69.

Stocks had taken a breather this week amid lingering concerns over the coronavirus pandemic and the pace of recovery despite the government’s considerable capital inflow into the economy.

Markets received a boost early on after stock futures surged in premarket sessions. The indexes however, edged slightly lower towards the late afternoon after gaining some early momentum.

US manufacturing output rose by 1.0% in January, maintaining a comparable lead over the past five months. While the utility sector contracted by 1.2%, mining gained 2.3%, the Federal Reserve said.

Investors were also upbeat over the news of increased industrial activity in Europe and Japan, which indicated a faster pick-up of the economies despite the weight of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A new wave of COVID infections in Europe, North America, and some places in Asia had threatened a prolonged recovery. However, proactive steps of the governments including vaccine procurement and distribution and new travel restrictions appeared to have blunted the threat successfully.

Friday’s session was led energy, basic materials, real estate, financials, industrials, healthcare, academic & educational services stocks. Uber stocks (NYSE:UBER) were trading lower on Friday after the UK Supreme Court gave a negative verdict in a case concerning its drivers in Britain.

The court rejected Uber’s contention that they are independent contractors and asked it to provide full employment benefits. The case assumed significance since similar legal proceedings may be brought up by Uber drivers in the US and other places. Some 65,000 drivers work for Uber in the UK.

Image Source: Pixabay 

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Top Gainers

Top performers on S&P 500 included Albemarle Corp (10.65%), Deere & Co (10.14%), HollyFrontier Corp (9.90%), and Freeport-McMoRan Inc (9.55%). On NASDAQ, top performers were Energous Corp (92.47%), Evolus Inc (72.49%), Vaccinex Inc (72.47%), and Viomi Technology Co Ltd (46.28%). On Dow Jones, Caterpillar Inc (5.15%), Dow Inc (5.06%), Boeing Co (4.13%), and American Express Co (2.82%) were among the leaders.

Top Losers

Top laggards on S&P 500 included Hologic Inc (-8.05%), West Pharmaceutical Services Inc (-5.33%), Zoetis Inc (-4.31%), and PerkinElmer Inc (-3.77%). On NASDAQ, Cleveland Biolabs Inc (-26.91%), China SXT Pharmaceuticals Inc (-22.38%), Lucira Health Inc (-17.62%), and US Well Services Inc (-17.59%). On Dow Jones, Visa Inc (-1.94%), Nike Inc (-1.94%), Procter & Gamble Co (-1.91%), and Johnson & Johnson (-1.67%) were among the top laggards.

Image Source: Refinitiv, NASDAQ Composite Index 6M price chart, 19 February 2021

Volume Movers

Top volume movers included Sundial Growers Inc (87.86mn), Vaccinex Inc (38.88mn), Energous Corp (25.33mn), Citius Pharmaceuticals Inc (19.78mn), Apple Inc (15.57mn), Riot Blockchain Inc (13.61mn), Ford Motor Co (8.53mn), Bank of America Corp (8.52mn), American Airlines Group Inc (7.34mn), General Electric Co (7.20mn), Microsoft Corp (6.59mn), Cisco Systems Inc (5.84mn), and Intel Corp (5.22mn).      

Futures & Commodities

Gold futures were up 0.32% to $1,780.85 per ounce, silver was up 0.76% to $27.290 per ounce, while copper gained 4.15% to $4.0630.

Brent oil futures for April delivery were down 1.89% to $62.72 and WTI crude futures for March delivery ticked down 2.53% to $58.98.

Bond Market

The yield on the US 30-year Treasury bond was up 2.91% to 2.136. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury bond was up 4.09% to 1.340.

US Dollar Index Futures was down 0.26% to 90.360.

Cryptocurrencies

Bitcoin has set another record on Friday after it moved up by 2.6% to $52,932. The world’s largest cryptocurrency has been breaking its own records over the past few of days. For the first time on Friday, Bitcoin moved closer to achieving $1 trillion market capitalization.

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In other news, a Congressional Committee grilled Robinhood Inc. CEO Vlad Tenev on allegations of impropriety labeled by some of its customers after they were banned from trading on certain stocks, including GameStop, in late January.

Mr. Tenev reaffirmed to the House members that those actions were not aimed at favoring someone but to curb the market volatility. Industry experts, however, remained divided over the intent. Robinhood and a few other brokerage firms had blocked people from trading after a social media-led surge of some stocks including Blackberry, and Nokia created extreme volatility.