Although the number of U.S. initial jobless claims fell more than expected last week to a one-year low, and U.S. GDP growth in the fourth quarter of last year was revised upward, better than expected, but Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s pre-market speech warned that the economic recovery exceeded expectations allowing the Fed to start tapering QE bond purchases in the future, U.S. stock futures turned lower during the day. The U.S. stock market opened lower under pressure, led by energy and technology stocks.
Into the midday session, some technology stocks rebounded, energy stocks narrowed losses, U.S. stock indexes collectively turned up at midday. Biden‘s first press conference after his presidency announced a focus on infrastructure and doubled the 100-day vaccination target, banking and transportation stocks supported the broader market higher. And as the “boycott of Xinjiang cotton” incident intensified, Nike, Adidas and other companies shares fell.
U.S. stocks in the midday session, demand was stronger than last month’s extraordinarily weak 7-year Treasury bid ended, the U.S. 10-year benchmark Treasury yield quickly upward, rising above 1.62% and 1.63% in quick succession to refresh the daily high.
The dollar index rose further as cryptocurrencies, led by bitcoin, continued to fall. In commodities, the global oil pipeline lifeline Suez Canal, which is blocked by giant ships, may take weeks to fully unblock, but new outbreak restrictions in Europe activated concerns about demand and international Crude Oil futures repeated their intraday plunge; precious metals such as Gold and industrial metals such as copper fell in tandem; and cotton futures plunged nearly 5%.
In European markets, energy stocks such as oil and gas led the decline, while pan-European stock indices closed slightly lower with the help of rising auto stocks. U.K. stocks were the worst performers among European countries due to EU restrictions on vaccine exports.
U.S. stock indexes turn up out of two-week trough Some popular mid-caps still plunged Small-cap stocks outperformed the broader market Retailer holdout stocks soared
The three major U.S. stock indexes opened lower collectively, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell nearly 350 points when it set a new daily low in early trading, the Nasdaq Composite Index once fell more than 1.3%, the S&P 500 had fallen more than 0.9%.
At the beginning of the afternoon session, all three major indices turned up in the short term. The Dow retained its gains, the S&P and Nasdaq had restarted the downtrend. After the afternoon Biden press conference, the three major indices rose to expand, collectively brushing a new daily high, the Dow rose more than 250 points at one point.
Finally, the Dow closed up 200.81 points, or 0.62%, at 32,619.48 points; S&P closed up 0.53%, at 3,909.52 points, both out of the two consecutive days as of Wednesday’s closing trough since March 10; the Nasdaq closed up 0.12%, at 12,977.68 points, out of the trough hit on Wednesday since March 8.
This week has been losing the broader market of small-cap stocks finally turned around, value stocks dominated the small-cap index Russell 2000 closed up 2.29%, far ahead of the three major stock indexes, which fell more than 2% on Wednesday to close at a new low since Feb. 1. The technology-heavy Nasdaq 100 index closed down 0.14%.
Dow component stocks, Boeing rose more than 3%; hit by the Xinjiang cotton incident, Nike had fallen nearly 6% in early trading, closing down more than 3%.
S&P’s 11 major sectors, in addition to falling more than 0.3% of telecommunications services and fell less than 0.1% of information technology closed up, the plate had led the decline in energy closed up more than 0.2%, the bottom, up more than 1.5% of the financial and materials and up more than 1.4% of the industrial leader, utilities rose about 1% up in front.
Leading technology stocks, fell nearly 5% on Wednesday, fell more than 2% at the beginning of Thursday’s session tesla closed up more than 1%. FAANMG six major technology stocks, only up more than 0.4% Apple closed up, Google parent company Alphabet closed slightly lower, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft fell more than 1%, Nifty fell more than 3%, after Benchmark gave a sell rating with Nifty.
U.S. retail holdout stocks closed up collectively, with Goss Electronics up 57%, GameStop up 52%, erasing more than 30% of Wednesday’s losses, AMC Theatres up 21% and Express up more than 13%.
Some popular Chinese stocks continue to plunge, to the U.S. stock market close, Wednesday fell more than 20% of Tencent Music and Vipshop, as well as Wednesday fell nearly 20% of Akiyip and Wednesday fell more than 8% of Baidu are down more than 10%, Alibaba fell nearly 3%. But the new energy auto stocks rose collectively, Peng car rose more than 5%, Azure car and ideal car rose more than 2%; early in the session fell nearly 8% of the first shares of electronic cigarette fog core technology closed up more than 2%; Pound and Lychee rose more than 2%; Wednesday fell more than 8% of the Chinese ETF KWEB fell more than 0.5%, Wednesday fell more than 6% of CQQQ fell more than 2%.
In Europe, pan-European stock indexes closed slightly lower, dragged by the decline in crude oil and industrial metals, the oil and gas sector and basic resources sector led the decline, oil and gas fell more than 2%, basic resources fell more than 1%, while the auto sector bucked the market rose more than 1%, auto stocks in the VW fell more than 2%, but Porsche rose nearly 4%, Daimler and BMW are up more than 1%. Among individual stocks, German-listed Adidas fell more than 6% due to the Xinjiang cotton incident, and Sweden‘s H&M fell 1.6%. British stocks fell the most among major European stock indexes after the EU issued new rules to limit vaccine exports.
10-year U.S. bond yields pull up intraday after Treasury bid sale
The yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note had been approaching 1.59%, near a one-week low, before U.S. stocks fell about 2 basis points during the day on Thursday, and U.S. stocks erased all declines to rise in midday trading.
After the release of the results of the 7-year Treasury bid, the 10-year U.S. bond yields rose rapidly, rising above 1.62% and 1.63% in quick succession, refreshing the daily high, the intra-day rise expanded to more than 2 basis points, U.S. stocks closed at about 1.62%, up 1 basis point during the day.
European government bond prices rose collectively on Thursday. The British 10-year benchmark Treasury yield fell 3 basis points intra-day to 0.73%; the German bund yield also fell about 3 basis points to -0.39% during the same period, hitting another five-week low.
Crude oil fell to a six-week low U.S. oil fell more than 6% intraday for the second day this week
International crude oil futures fell for a second day this week, giving back most of the gains from Wednesday’s big rally.
U.S. WTI crude oil lost the $60 mark in European trading on Thursday and fell below $59 in early U.S. trading, dropping below $58 as it set a new daily low for a maximum intraday drop of more than 6.1 percent, falling more than 6 percent intraday for the second day this week, giving back all of Wednesday’s gains. Brent crude oil fell below $63 and $62 one after another during the European session, and fell below $61 in early U.S. trading to set a new daily low, down more than 5.3% intraday, giving back most of Wednesday’s gains. Crude oil losses narrowed in the afternoon session.
By the close, WTI May crude oil futures closed down $2.62, or 4.28%, at $58.56 per barrel, approaching the closing low for the main contract since Feb. 5, set by Tuesday’s drop below $58. Brent May crude futures closed down $2.46, or 3.82%, at $61.95/barrel, having fallen below $61 on Tuesday to set a new closing low for the main contract since Feb. 8. On Wednesday, both the cloth oil and U.S. oil closed up nearly 6%, the largest closing gain since November 9 last year.
U.S. cotton futures fell nearly 5% to a new three-month low
By late Thursday in New York, U.S. ICE cotton futures were down 4.85 percent at 78.44 cents per pound, the lowest since Dec. 31, 2020, continuing off the peak of 95.60 cents per pound recorded on Feb. 25. The New York cotton futures No. 2 contract differential main contract was up 2.78% at -1.05, after the U.S. had weakened to -1.11 early in the session, the first Time since April 2, 2020 that it fell through -1.00.
The U.S. dollar index rose three straight and hit a new four-month high Bitcoin once fell below $51,000 in 24 hours fell more than 10%
The ICE Dollar Index (DXY), which tracks the exchange rate of a basket of six major U.S. dollar currencies, continued its upward march, rising above 92.90 at midday Thursday in U.S. stocks and once approaching 92.92, hitting a new intraday high for the second day in a row since last November and rising more than 0.4% during the day.
By Thursday’s U.S. equity close, the dollar index was slightly below 92.87, up nearly 0.37% intraday and up for a third straight day; the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose 0.1%, near its high earlier this month.
Mainstream cryptocurrencies fell further en masse on Thursday. Bitcoin (BTC) had fallen below $50,400 before the U.S. stock market, dropping more than 10% in 24 hours, down nearly $3,000 from its intraday high in early Asian trading, and rejoined $52,000 at midday in the U.S. The U.S. stock market closed above $52,300, down nearly 6% cumulatively in the last 24 hours.
Gold returned to more than a week low Silver hit a two-month low for the second time this week, and copper hit a three-day losing streak, a new low for more than two weeks and the biggest drop in the same period
New York gold futures just ended a two-day losing streak resumed its downward trend, with COMEX April gold futures closing down 0.5% at $1,725.10 per ounce, all but erasing Wednesday’s gains and returning to the closing lows set on Tuesday since March 12.
New York silver and platinum futures also returned to losses, with silver futures falling below $25.05, following Tuesday’s record low close since Jan. 15. Platinum fell more than 2% to set a new closing low since March 8, which was set on Tuesday.
London base metals futures closed lower across the board for the first time since last Tuesday, March 16. Global copper inventories rebounded more than 80% from their February lows, highlighting a pullback in demand, and copper fell for a third straight day, dropping 2.2% below $8,800 on Thursday to a new low since March 9 and the biggest drop since March 9. Lead and zinc also fell for three days in a row, hitting one-week and two-week lows, respectively. LON Tin fell for two days, hitting a two-week low. Nickel and aluminum gave back some of Wednesday’s gains.
Gold, silver, copper and oil all fell on Thursday, with crude oil falling the most, followed by copper.
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