* Dow, S&P, Russell 2000 reach new closing highs
* Tech biggest gainer among S&P sectors
* Dollar, gold down; crude rises
* U.S. 10-Year Treasury yield ~1.52%
March 11 - Welcome to the home for real-time coverage of markets brought to you by Reuters reporters. You can share your thoughts with us at markets.research@thomsonreuters.com
S&P, DOW RIDE STIMULUS TIDE TO NEW CLOSING HIGHS (1615 EST/2115 GMT)
Wall Street closed sharply higher on Tuesday as risk-on sentiment, driven by stimulus and upbeat economic data, sent the S&P 500 and the Dow sailing to all-time closing highs.
But the Nasdaq , which confirmed a correction on Monday, was the star of the show, jumping 2.5% as tech and tech-adjacent megacaps reclaimed their leadership.
Tech was the biggest percentage gainer among S&P sectors and provided the biggest lift to all three major stock indexes, with Microsoft , Apple , Facebook
, Amazon.com and Alphabet once again leading the parade.
Not to be outdone, the small-cap Russell 2000 also scaled a record closing high.
President Joe Biden signed his $1.9 trillion 'American Rescue Plan' into law, adding fuel to the rally. That, along with upbeat economic data and ongoing inoculations suggested the U.S. economy could be well on the road to normal.
Hyperactive stonks, sent to the time-out corner, had a relatively muted session. GameStop dropped 1.9%, while AMC Entertainment and Blackberry gained 4.4% and 3.5%, respectively. Koss deflated by 16.7% by closing bell.
U.S. Treasury yields inched higher in the wake of a $24 billion 30-year bond auction.
Here's your closing snapshot:
(Stephen Culp)
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SLOGGING TOWARD THE EQUINOX: THE U.S. ECONOMY GAINS GROUND (1355 EST/1855 GMT)
A year after the COVID-19 pandemic brought the global economy to a screeching halt and sent markets into a tailspin, the United States continues to claw its way back to 'normal.'
Global financial information firm Oxford Economics (OE) is out with its most recent Recovery Tracker, which shows a 1.9 percentage point gain to 82.3% of pre-crisis levels.
OE follows 23 discrete metrics and groups them into six baskets: financial, mobility, production, employment, demand, and health.
In the week ended February 26 - the most recent data point available - Americans dug themselves out from crippling winter storms amid ongoing vaccine deployment an regional economic reopenings.
The mobility tracker enjoyed the best improvement, rising 7.5 percentage points due to rising gasoline demand and increased commercial flight traffic. Production rose 4.0 percentage points, and higher job postings and increased temp gigs boosted the employment picture by 2.5 percentage points, according to OE.
Discretionary spending at restaurants, retail and recreation drove a 1.2 percentage point gain in demand, while the health subcomponent inched up 0.3 percentage points as new coronavirus cases dropped to their lowest numbers since October.
Higher bond yields led to a 4.4 percentage point drop in the financial tracker, the only component to lose ground.
"Vaccine delivery continues to impress with more than 2mn shots being administered daily," writes Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at OE. "The warmer weather, improving health conditions, and stimulus from the American Rescue Plan should support more travel activity, increased dining-out, and small businesses reopening."
The chart below, courtesy of OE, shows a history of the recovery tracker broken down by its six major components:
(Stephen Culp)
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AS SMALL CAPS RUN, FINANCIALS TRY TO PLAY CATCH UP (1205 EST/1705 GMT)
Nicholas Colas, Co-Founder of DataTrek Research, is out with some thoughts on the small-cap Russell 2000 .
Colas admits that the Russell 2000 has been more resilient than he thought it would be this month. The index hit a record intraday high early Thursday, and is on track for an all-time closing high as well.
While Colas says DataTrek is not ready to call for a next leg higher, they do believe there may one more investment idea lurking around in the U.S. small cap space.
This would be the S&P 600 Small Cap Financials ETF .
Colas says that "unlike the Russell 2000, which is already 34 percent above its pre-pandemic highs of August 2018, or the S&P 600, up 25 percent versus its old highs, PSCF is only now just getting back to its old highs of the same period."
Additionally, he says that PSCF trades at 17.5x forward earnings and, "like financial stocks everywhere," this is a substantial discount to both the Russell (32x) and the S&P 600 (21x).
Most of the names in PSCF are small banks, and unlike the Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF , PSCF also includes REITs. Colas notes that the PSCF’s dividend yield is 3%, or almost 2x XLF’s.
As Colas sees it, PSCF is a way to play earnings leverage off the bottom for small banks, based on economic recovery and fiscal stimulus. Additionally, there is exposure to "bank consolidation and structurally better industry returns over time."
Colas' bottom line is that PSCF is not for the feint of heart, but it's a way to play financials. And despite its recent run up, "there should be more in the tank now that markets are seeking out small cap and value plays."
Here is a 5-year PSCF chart showing it nearing its 2018 high:
(Terence Gabriel)
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CLAIMS LESS AWFUL THAN USUAL, HIT 4-MONTH LOW (1100 EST/1600 GMT)
The U.S. labor market has been a difficult patient in the economic recovery ward, but data released on Thursday lent hope that it would soon be walking again.
The number of U.S. workers filing first-time applications for unemployment benefits dropped by 42,000 last week to 712,000 according to the Labor Department, 13,000 fewer than analysts expected.
While the number marks a four-month low, it's still extraordinarily high. Claims have remained above 665,000 - the worst reading during the great recession - for a year now. For context, the population of Portland, Oregon is 645,291, according to 2019 census estimates.
Still, combined with the strength of Friday's employment report, the data legitimizes the notion that the struggling U.S. labor market is on the mend.
"When states re-open, firms which may have been on the brink of layoffs have an incentive to hold onto staff for a while longer, at least," writes Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. "We expect this effect to become much more powerful over the next couple of months, and we expect to see jobless claims falling rapidly through the spring."
"We look for 500K or less per week by Memorial Day."
Ongoing jobless claims , reported on a one-week lag, also surprised consensus to the upside, falling by 193,000 to 4.144 million.
Later in the morning, the Labor Department released its Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) for the month of January.
While January is ancient history in economics terms, the report does provide a view of labor market churn, thermometer for economic heat.
It showed that while job openings increased in the first month of the year, hiring slowed down.
And while layoffs and discharges edged lower, so did the quit rate. The quit rate is considered by many economists to be a gauge of consumer expectations as workers are unlikely to walk away from a job in times of economic uncertainty.
But that was in January, when dinosaurs roamed the earth.
U.S. stocks are walking the sunny side of Wall Street in morning trading.
All three major indexes are firmly in positive territory, with tech - led by a robust rebound in chips - enjoying a solid bounce.
(Stephen Culp)
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WALL STREET GREEN OUT OF THE GATE, TECH RECLAIMS ITS CROWN (1004 EST/1504 GMT)
Wall Street started Thursday with a spring in its step, with all three major U.S. stock indexes solidly green.
The Nasdaq , which started the week with a correction confirmation, was out front as the pendulum of investor favor swung back to tech .
Tech is not only the biggest percentage gainer among S&P 500
sectors, it is giving the biggest boost to all three indexes.
Apple Inc , Microsoft Corp , Facebook Inc
, Amazon.com and Tesla Inc are among the usual suspects providing the biggest lifts.
The Labor Department was the harbinger of less-awful-than-usual jobless claims news, which showed new applications for unemployment benefits dipping more than expected, building on Friday's blockbuster employment report.
Governments made it clear they were determined to pave the way to a quick and solid recovery from the global health crisis.
President Biden's $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package is shortly expected to be signed into law, having passed its final vote by the House of Representatives late Wednesday.
For its part, the European Central Bank announced it was poised to crank up its money printing in order to cap euro zone borrowing costs.
While the potential speed of recovery has raised inflation concerns, driving Treasury yields higher, those fears have recently cooled a bit. Although now slightly higher on Thursday, the benchmark 10-year yield did hit a 5-day low earlier.
Here's your opening snapshot:
(Stephen Culp)
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NASDAQ FUTURES: BOUNCE HITS BATTLE LINE (0900 EST/1400 GMT)
CME e-mini Nasdaq 100 futures have seen quite a bounce off their March 5 low. With this, they are now battling, or nearing, some important resistance levels.
The futures have rallied as much as 6.6% in just 4 trading days. This action has them flirting with the 13,000 level:
However, the resistance line from the February 16 intraday high is now a hurdle around 13,015 on the hourly charts. In fact, over the past four hours or so, it has capped strength.
This line comes in just ahead of the 76.4%/ 78.6% Fibonacci retracement zone March 1 to March 5 down-leg at 13,063.69/ 13,088.36.
A close above these levels can add credence to the view that the futures may have bottomed on March 5. A thrust above the March 1 high at 13,328.25 can tilt toward a trend change favoring new highs above the February peak.
That said, with volatility elevated, overwhelming these levels may prove to be no easy feat. On Wednesday the futures were up 1.6% at one point, only to close down on the day.
A reversal below the support line from the March 8 low, now around 12,850, can suggest bears are regaining control. Of note, since the mid-February top, once the futures broke a multi-day support line, it led to fresh lows.
(Terence Gabriel)
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FOR THURSDAY'S LIVE MARKETS' POSTS PRIOR TO 0900 EST/1400 GMT - CLICK HERE:
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(Terence Gabriel is a Reuters market analyst. The views expressed are his own)
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