Stocks move higher amid upbeat retail earnings
Yahoo Finance Live anchors discuss how stocks are moving in midday trading.
Video Transcript
JULIE HYMAN: Welcome back. We are taking a look at markets that are actually at the highs of the session, it looks like.
JARED BLIKRE: Yeah. Let's take a look at the NASDAQ, up almost 2% here at the highs of the session, the Russell 2000 right there with it. And we're looking at a multi-day rally, basically four days here. And you can see a little bit choppier for the Russell 2000, up 3 and 1/2 percent.
But let's see if we can get out. There we go, the Dow up 4 and 1/4 percent. So really, the industrials and some of the value and cyclical trades have been what's doing well. And maybe we can take a look at the sector action.
JULIE HYMAN: Yeah, let's look at the sectors. I mean, what's interesting to me, as we have seen this action of the past few days is, nothing's changed.
JARED BLIKRE: Consumer discretionary, yeah.
JULIE HYMAN: I mean, we have had some better results from some of the retailers today. So perhaps some investors are finding that reassuring to some extent. But we also got the second read on first quarter GDP this morning that showed a 1 and 1/2 percent contraction, backward-looking, to be sure. But nonetheless, it's not like anything fundamentally has changed that's signaled the all clear in the markets. But sentiment, at least for today, has swung back to the upside.
JARED BLIKRE: Yeah. And you look at some of the lagging sectors here. Everything is obviously in the green. Health care, utilities, real estate, staples, all of those are the defensive sectors. So that's what you want to see when you have what's looking like a healthy rally.
But I feel the need to couch all this in the language that I've been saying, that this can reverse very quickly, as we've seen. So we're trying to get things started again. But we'll see.
JULIE HYMAN: Yes, we will see. And I want to look at the retailers in a little more detail here. I think they're on screen number two, right?
JARED BLIKRE: Yes, they are. If we can push that-- and they're right here.
JULIE HYMAN: OK so the retailers, what I want to look at here, is they're all in the green today, as we see some relief here. And actually, Gap just bounced out to me, because Gap is rising. It's set to report its earnings after the close of trading. And as we know, Gap has not performed terribly well in the past when it reports its numbers. And indeed, it's down 35% year to date.
And that reminds me, as we look at this big bounce that we're seeing in the retailers today, which as we've talked about, is being led by some of the companies that have reported-- Macy's, of course, a big part of that in today's session. Let's do the equals so we can look at--
JARED BLIKRE: Macy's as a small company now. And I think that's also--
JULIE HYMAN: A $5 billion company--
JARED BLIKRE: That's part of the story. I mean, if you could hit the five-year or 10-year down there, really give a picture-- Macy's had a much bigger footprint in the past. And you can see this really on the 10-year chart when it was up here. This was before the YFi Interactive was invented, by the way.
But I think the theme is that a lot of the beaten-down retailers are posting some of these big numbers simply because things were really bad for them last year. And they didn't really have it together.
JULIE HYMAN: Yes. And that's something that Sucharita talked about. And just for a second here as we look at these, I want to look at the one-month chart of the retailers in contrast with what we're seeing today.
JARED BLIKRE: Yes, a terrible month, May, for those things.
JULIE HYMAN: So this really puts a fine point on it that today is a bounce-back, even if it's catalyzed by some better-than-expected numbers--
JARED BLIKRE: Or a dead cat.
JULIE HYMAN: It comes on the back-- yes, both--
JARED BLIKRE: Exactly.
JULIE HYMAN: All of the above.
JARED BLIKRE: Lots of cats.
JULIE HYMAN: It comes on the back of this, doesn't it? So--
JARED BLIKRE: Yes.
JULIE HYMAN: --that maybe makes it look a little less exciting.
And then why don't we go back to screen number one?
JARED BLIKRE: Ooh, yes.
JULIE HYMAN: --because we want to look at--
JARED BLIKRE: This is exciting.
JULIE HYMAN: --the memes.
JARED BLIKRE: And this is one month. So it's been rocky for everybody. I'll get back to the--
JULIE HYMAN: Yes, you're closer.
JARED BLIKRE: We got it. We're going to work out a great--
JULIE HYMAN: --middle. We have to look at-- work on the choreography.
JARED BLIKRE: We're going to work on that.
JULIE HYMAN: So today, we're seeing a lot of green on the part of the meme stocks.
JARED BLIKRE: Yes. And GameStop, I saw it perk up. Yeah, it keeps changing position. But I saw it perk up earlier in the week. Let's go to a four-day chart. And you can see, it was getting some love yesterday.
So this is a continuation. This is a two-day trend. Two days does not make a trend unless you're an intraday trader. But on the longer term--
[LAUGHTER]
Let's look at the longer term. This is a giant consolidation pattern. This was the original meme stock high. And we are just shopping around. But lower highs, that's not necessarily a good thing. We'll have to see.
JULIE HYMAN: We will have to see.
