Wall Street rises as bargain hunters return, with major corporate earnings in focus, while Bitcoin remains steady post-halving
U.S. stocks closed higher on Monday, breaking a six-day losing streak for the S&P 500, as investors returned to Wall Street seeking bargains ahead of a busy week of quarterly results from key companies, providing insights into the health of the U.S. economy.
Technology stocks led the gains, but all 11 S&P 500 sectors closed higher, with financial stocks also posting significant gains.
Preliminary data shows that at the close of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose +253.58 points, or +0.67%, to 38,239.98.
The broad-based Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained +43.37 points, or +0.87%, to 5,010.60, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index added +169.30 points, or +1.11%, to 15,451.31.
As the busy week kicks off, investors eagerly await quarterly results from major companies, including the so-called "Magnificent Seven" stocks, such as Tesla, Meta Platforms, Alphabet, and Microsoft.
Among these, Alphabet rose by +1.43%, Amazon by +1.5%, Meta decreased by -0.15%, Tesla fell by -3.4%, Microsoft increased by +0.46%, Apple rose by +0.51%, and Nvidia rebounded by +4.35%.
Additionally, bank stocks saw strength following some encouraging profit reports.
Tesla is scheduled to report its earnings after Tuesday's closing bell, with analysts anticipating further challenges for the car company amidst a -40% stock decline in 2024.
Verizon Communications started the week's earnings reports with a less severe profit decline than expected, attributed to revenue-supporting measures.
However, its stock saw volatility, dropping -4.7% after it reported weaker first-quarter revenue and maintained its full-year profit forecast.
Investors will receive updates on the performance of the U.S. economy with the release of first-quarter U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) data on Thursday.
The latest reading on the Fed's preferred inflation gauge, the core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, will follow on Friday.
Last week, top officials at the Federal Reserve cautioned that they might need to maintain high-interest rates for some time to ensure inflation moves toward their 2% target.
Despite expectations of lower rates following last year's sharp decline in inflation, a series of reports this year indicating persistently high inflation has raised concerns about stalled progress.
Currently, Fed policymakers are in a media blackout period leading up to their policy meeting on May 1.
Meanwhile, in the U.S. government bond markets, the yield on the 10-year Treasury, which helps set rates for mortgages and other economy-dictating loans, finished at 4.61%, while the policy-sensitive two-year yield, which tends to reflect market expectations of future Fed moves, closed at 4.98%.
Despite recent volatility, Bitcoin's market price remains below its peak set a month ago at US$73,740.90.
However, it rose on Monday following the completion of the quadrennial "halving" event over the weekend.
This event, a pre-programmed adjustment to the Bitcoin blockchain, reduces the number of tokens companies receive for validating transactions by half.
This, in turn, reduces the number of bitcoins that miners can unlock by half.
At the New York close, Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency, was trading at around US$66,840.00, fluctuating within an intraday range of US$64,527.00 to US$67,208.00.
From a technical perspective, despite Bitcoin's recent decline from its peak, the support is estimated between US$56,000.00 and US$58,000.00, while resistance is seen between US$78,000.00 and US$81,000.00.
Market participants should closely monitor current price action and supply and demand dynamics and exercise caution due to expected high volatility.
Adapting trading strategies to market fluctuations is essential.
Meanwhile, Ethereum, the second-largest blockchain in terms of cryptocurrency market capitalization, traded within a daily range of US$3,130.00 to US$3,233.00 before closing at US$3,198.00.
Precious metal prices saw another volatile session, with the spot gold market tumbling as safe-haven appeal waned, resulting in prices settling at $2,333 per ounce. Meanwhile, silver closed at $27.26.
In the energy markets, Brent crude's global benchmark slid to $87.22, while the U.S. benchmark, West Texas Intermediate, settled at $81.96.
The U.S. Dollar Index (U.S. DXY), which gauges the dollar's performance against six major foreign currencies in the forex market, was flat at 106.12.
Meanwhile, the Eurodollar was 1.0654, and the British pound finished at 1.2354. The Japanese yen ended at 154.76, while the Australian dollar was at 0.6452.
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