Stock Market News For Mar 22, 2019
A rally in shares of Apple buoyed gains for the broader markets. All the three major benchmarks ended the session in the green, with Dow posting its best close in the last five weeks. Notably, the surge in Apple’s shares also boosted its market cap past $900 billion. Meanwhile, China’s commerce ministry announced that Lighthizer and Mnuchin would be travelling to the country later this month for further trade negotiations.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) increased 0.8%, to close at 25,962.51. The S&P 500 increased 1.1% to close at 2,854.88. The tech-laden Nasdaq Composite Index closed at 7,838.96, gaining 1.4%. The fear-gauge CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) increased 1.3% to close at 14.09. Advancers outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by a 1.36-to-1 ratio. On Nasdaq, a 1.31-to-1 ratio favored declining issues.
Apple’s Rally Boosts the Broader Market
The Dow amassed 216.8 points to post its best close since Feb 15. Shares of Apple AAPL rallied 3.7% after an analyst at Needham upgraded the iPhone maker to strong buy. This came just ahead of the “Apple Special Event,” scheduled for next week.
Following such events, Apple’s stock rose to a 4-month high. Further, this also boosted the company’s market capitalization to $924.3 billion from $887.2 billion. The stock ended the session with a market cap of $919.9 billion, just below Microsoft MSFT with a cap of $922.4 billion.
The S&P 500 rose 30.7 points to also end in the green. Of the 11 major sectors of the S&P 500, 10 ended in the positive territory, with technology shares leading the advancers. The Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLK) increased 2.5% on Thursday.
Meanwhile, the Nasdaq increased 110 points to close in positive territory. Gains for the tech-laden index were not only powered Apple’s rally but also a surge of 2.3% in shares of Microsoft. Both the stocks carry a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Lighthizer and Mnuchin to Visit China
On Mar 19, President Donald Trump stated that he intended to keep tariffs on Chinese goods in place for a “substantial period of time” in order to make sure that the Chinese “lived by” their part of the agreement.
On Mar 20, China’s commerce ministry confirmed that on Thursday that U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin would be visiting the country on Mar 28-29 for further trade talks. Also, Chinese Vice Premier Liu He would be traveling to the United States early in April for trade-related negotiations.
Economic Data
On the economic data front, The U.S. Conference Board Leading Economic Index (LEI) for February increased 0.2%, surpassing the consensus estimate of 0.1%. Meanwhile, initial jobless claims for the last week fell to 221,000 claims from 230,000 in the previous week.
The Philadelphia Fed’s business activity index rose to 13.7 in March, rebounding from -4.1 in February.
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