Wall Street Close: Nasdaq refreshes record top but coronavirus woes weigh on markets
- US equities closed mostly lower even as Nasdaq Composite refreshed all-time high.
- Fears that covid weigh on economic trajectory challenged bulls at the start of holiday-shortened week.
- Chatters over challenges to US stimulus exert additional downside pressure.
- Shares of Moderna cheer Morgan Stanley’s price revision, technology stocks are the leader.
US traders failed to witness a warm welcome as they returned from a long weekend with the same old coronavirus woes and rising economic fears, recollecting Friday’s bad memories.
The doubling of the virus-led hospitalizations in a year and a 67% hike in the covid-led deaths in the last two weeks than the previous period portrays the COVID-19 fears in the US. ''It is an illustration of how the delta variant has hampered progress in curbing the pandemic even as vaccines became widely available,'' The Washington Post wrote.
On the other hand, CNN came out with the news suggesting further hardships for the Democratic party-backed stimulus as it reaches the House. The news said, “House Republicans could face increased pressure to vote against a bipartisan infrastructure package when they return to Washington later this month.”
Against this backdrop, Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) drops 270 points, or 0.76%, to 35,100 whereas S&P 500 shed 15.40 points or 0.34% to close Tuesday’s trading around 4,520. On the contrary, Nasdaq cheered the run-up of technology stocks while refreshing the record top with a 15,403 level, closing the day with 10 points of an upside, or 0.07% daily gains, around 15,374.
Shares of Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Apple all managed to ignore heavy US Treasury yields and Moderna cheered Morgan Stanley’s upward revision to price target with an over 4.0% jump.
It’s worth noting that the risk-off mood favored the US Dollar Index to post the heaviest daily gains in three weeks while also weighing on the commodity prices. Elsewhere, Bitcoin dropped over 10% even as El Salvador becomes the first country to formally adopt digital currency as a legal tender.
Given the light calendar and a short week, not to forget the pre-ECB caution, market players may keep their eyes on the forget comments from Fed New York President John C. Williams for fresh impulse.
Read: Forex Today: Dollar regains its pose in the near term