Midday: NASDAQ and S & P hit intraday highs, led by retail stocks

On Wednesday morning, the S & P 500 index rose as high as 3399.54, and the NASDAQ rose to 11248.11, both new intraday highs. Retailer target surged 11%, leading the retail sector higher. The S & P 500 closed higher on Tuesday, rebounding 52% from its march low. The index also hit a closing and intraday record high yesterday, ending the shortest bear market in history. Wall Street defines a bear market as the S & P 500 index falling more than 20% from its peak. When the index closed above its previous high, the bear market was officially over. The stock market recovery is mainly due to the huge amount of liquidity released by the Federal Reserve during the spread of public health events. The Nasdaq composite index also set a record high intraday and closing record on Tuesday. Big tech stocks led gains again, with Amazon (AMZN) up 4 per cent on Tuesday, its share price at an all-time high, after the company announced plans to add thousands of jobs to major hubs across the country. The rise in technology stocks continued the strong trend of the past few months as investors poured into software and technology stocks during the outbreak. Big tech stocks such as Netflix and Amazon performed well during the home quarantine in the US. In the near future, as investors bet that vaccines will eventually emerge and return to semi normal lifestyles, economically sensitive stocks such as industry, energy and finance are catching up. However, while the U.S. stock market rebounded and reached a new high, millions of Americans are still unemployed due to the coronavirus epidemic, and the prospect of another round of economic stimulus plan is still unclear. U.S. House Speaker Pelosi signaled compromise on Tuesday, saying “we are willing to halve the plan to meet current demand.” as many analysts have pointed out, the market tends to underestimate the future rather than the current situation. A large number of new data exceeded expectations, and the trajectory of economic development has been improving compared with the trend earlier this spring. Even in the epicentres of recent outbreaks in the South and west of the United States, the growth rate of coronavirus has begun to slow down. Data on the housing market, retail sales and manufacturing activities suggest that some sectors of the economy are at least beginning to recover from the severe damage caused by the epidemic. Peter giacchi, head of in store trading at citadel securities, said: “many people believe that the market cannot accurately reflect the severity of potential health and economic crisis because it is focused on the future rather than what happens in real time.” he added: “in the early stages of the outbreak, we saw a sharp decline in the stock market, which was caused by the uncertainty of the virus epidemic. Now, to some extent, investors can cope with the current situation, they have a longer-term, more optimistic outlook, and the market is performing as well as it has been in history. ” At the same time, data show that CEOs of U.S. companies have already begun to sell stocks, which makes the stock market rise “yellow light”. According to data from trim tabs investment research company, US CEOs and other insiders have sold more than $50 billion worth of stocks since the beginning of May, and the amount of shares sold in August may exceed $15 billion, which will be a warning signal for the future market of US stocks. According to Howard Silverblatt, senior analyst at standard & Poor’s Dow Jones index, a bull market is considered to be a bull market, but only when the S & P 500 reaches a record closing high. not long ago, many people thought that the rise in the stock market was just a “bear market rebound”. Bear market rebound refers to the rebound in the process of decline, which will not really reverse the downward trend of the market. After each rebound, it will continue to create new lows. On Tuesday, the S & P 500 index was able to confirm the emergence of a new bull market when it broke its all-time high before the outbreak in February. The S & P 500 index climbed 20% in the second quarter, one of the best levels on record. The index has risen 9.3% since the third quarter and 4.9% since 2020. According to the UBS survey, only about 23% of U.S. investors expect U.S. stocks to continue to rise in the next six months, which is close to the record low since the survey began in 1987. UBS pointed out that investors were nervous about the relatively narrow basis of the rally. This year’s S S & P 500 index’s rise, the six major U.S. technology giants accounted for a large part. UBS advised investors to look for potential laggards and stick to long-term investment plans. The Federal Reserve will release the latest minutes of its monetary policy meeting at 2 p.m. EST on Wednesday. What the market is most concerned about is whether the minutes will reveal the Fed’s signals on the control of the yield curve and the attitude of Fed officials to inflation. in fact, it seems that there is no suspense for the Federal Reserve to maintain a loose tone for a long time. At present, the market is more worried about whether the pressure for further easing of the Federal Reserve will increase under the situation of the deadlock of the US economic stimulus bill. “It will send a clear signal to the market that the Fed will not only tolerate inflation above 2% for the time being, but will support it and work in this direction,” said Mickey levy, chief economist for the US and Asia at Berenberg capital markets Therefore, the attitude of Federal Reserve officials towards inflation will seriously affect the trend of global markets. In addition to the minutes of the Federal Reserve meeting, there will be a big meeting in the crude oil market today: it is reported that the organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies (OPEC +) oil producing countries will meet on Wednesday to assess the implementation of production reduction. The reduction is to support oil prices during the new outbreak. In other news, the US National Congress officially nominated former Vice President Joe Biden as the presidential candidate for 2020 on the evening of 18 US Eastern time. the second quarter sales growth of target set a record. Revenue increased by 24.7% to $23 billion, far exceeding the market’s expected $19.82 billion; net profit increased by 80.3% to $1.69 billion, and adjusted earnings per share of $3.38, also far exceeding the market expectations of $1.58. Lloyd’s second quarter results far exceeded market expectations, e-commerce sales increased 135% year-on-year. In the second quarter, Lloyd’s revenue rose 30% to $27.3 billion, far higher than analysts’ forecast of $24.2 billion, as demand for home furnishings surged due to the demand for home furnishings. Adjusted earnings per share were $3.75, up 74.4% year-on-year, far exceeding market expectations of $2.93. the company’s us same store sales increased by 35.1% year-on-year, while e-commerce business sales soared by 135%. However, Lloyd’s said that due to the uncertainty of health events, the visibility of future business trends was limited, so it withdrew the performance guidelines. Tjx, a discount retailer in the U.S., turned into a loss year on year, deteriorating from a net profit of $759 million last year to a net loss of $214.2 million, or 18 cents a share, compared with a loss of 10 cents expected by analysts. Sales fell to $6.67 billion from $9.78 billion in the same period last year, slightly higher than market expectations of $6.55 billion. it is reported that Johnson & Johnson will acquire pharmaceutical company momenta pharmaceuticals for about $6.5 billion in cash, and the transaction is expected to be completed in the second half of 2020. In response to Oracle’s bid for tiktok, trump pointed out that both Microsoft and Oracle will benefit the United States. Tesla Model3 was accused of a car crash due to brake failure, and customer service said the car was OK. It is also reported that the hardware of Tesla electric vehicle has reached hw3.0, and the next generation of hardware has been developed. Goldman Sachs raised its target Home Depot price from $265 to $301. BarCap raised its target price from $315 to $260.