S&P 500 Hits New High, Tech Stocks Lead
4:12 pm Friday, July 23rd, 2021
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite have set all-time highs today, as the market draws support from mega-cap leadership, good earnings news, and some price momentum.
Today’s advance has lifted the S&P 500 above the 4400 level for the first time ever after touching 4233.13 at Monday’s low. The S&P 500 communication services sector (+2.7%) is way out in the lead right now amid strong gains in Alphabet (GOOG) and Facebook (FB).
Alphabet and Facebook are rallying on expectations for strong earnings reports next week after Snap (SNAP) and Twitter (TWTR) provided better-than-expected results along with upbeat Q3 revenue guidance. FB had its price target raised to a Street-high $480 from $400 at Credit Suisse.
In addition, Apple (AAPL) and Microsoft (MSFT) were both up 1%, helping the information technology sector (+0.8%) keep pace with the health care (+1.0%) and consumer staples (+1.1%) sectors.
Interestingly, the energy sector (-1.1%) is the only sector trading lower, and it’s down 1% despite higher oil prices. The financials sector (+0.1%) is struggling to attract buying interest despite some curve-steepening activity in Treasuries and a positive earnings reaction in American Express (AXP).
Intel (INTC), Honeywell (HON), and Schlumberger (SLB) were trading lower despite their positive earnings reports. INTC shares were down 5.30%.
The 10-yr yield is up two basis points to 1.29% while the 2-yr yield is down one basis point to 0.20%.
