Wall Street Climbs as Reopening Efforts Support Sentiment
By Yasin Ebrahim
Investing.com - Wall Street climbed on Monday, led by real estate and financial stocks as efforts to reopen the economy continued to underpin investor hopes of a quicker recovery in the second half of the year.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.41%, or 103 points, the S&P 500 gained 0.54%, while the Nasdaq Composite added 0.83%.
Mass civil unrest across several states over the weekend did little to drown out investor optimism as financials continued to rack up gains after hitting a more than two-month high last week.
Real estate was also among the biggest gainers, led by Vornado Realty Trust (NYSE:VNO), Regency Centers (NASDAQ:REG), and Kimco Realty (NYSE:KIM), with the latter up more than 7% after JPMorgan upped its price target on the stock to $13 from $11.
Healthcare, meanwhile, proved the exception to the gains on Wall Street, paced by a 7% decline in Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) after the pharmaceutical giant revealed disappointing data from its breast-cancer drug trial.
On the economic front, investors embraced signs of steadying manufacturing activity as the Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing index for May rose to a reading of 43.1 from 41.5 in April.
The ISM index will "probably improve materially in June" as factories begin to reopen and as Boeing (NYSE:BA) resumes production of the 737 MAX, but a return to pre-Covid-19 levels remains some way off, Jefferies (NYSE:JEF) said.
U.S.-China trade tensions, meanwhile, remained elevated despite President Donald Trump refraining on Friday from imposing harsh sanctions on Beijing. The president said the U.S. would move to end Hong Kong's special status that grants the city favorable trade terms.
China ordered companies to temporarily halt imports of some U.S. farm goods, Bloomberg reported Monday.
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