NEW YORK, April 5 — Wall Street’s main indexes rose on Monday, boosted by megacap tech and growth stocks and a surge in Twitter after Elon Musk revealed his stake in the company, amid cautionary signals in the bond market and talk of more sanctions against Russia over Ukraine.
Gains were relatively concentrated as the financial sector .SPSY fell, as did defensive groups such as utilities .SPLRCU and healthcare .SPXHC.
Shares of Twitter surged 27.1 per cent after Tesla Inc TSLA.O Chief Executive Musk revealed a 9.2 per cent stake in the micro-blogging site, making him its largest shareholder. Shares of other social media companies also rose.
Tesla shares rose 5.6 per cent after the company on Saturday reported record electric vehicle deliveries for the first quarter.
“A lot of the news we are seeing today is generally positive for technology,” said Mona Mahajan, senior investment strategist at Edward Jones.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI rose 103.61 points, or 0.3 per cent, to 34,921.88, the S&P 500 .SPX gained 36.78 points, or 0.81 per cent, at 4,582.64 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC added 271.05 points, or 1.9 per cent, at 14,532.55.
Along with Tesla, gains in Apple Inc AAPL.O, Amazon.com Inc AMZN.O and Microsoft Corp MSFT.O gave boosts to the S&P 500.
However, seven of the 11 S&P 500 sectors were weaker, with utilities and healthcare both falling about 0.8 per cent.
The S&P 500 growth index .IGX gained 1.7 per cent while the S&P 500 value index .IVX dipped 0.1 per cent.
In the bond market, the benchmark US 10-year Treasury yield ticked up on Monday and the 2-year/10-year yield curve remained inverted. The curve inversion is seen as a harbinger of a recession in the next two years or so.
“All this talk about an inverted yield curve and what that may be predicting in terms of possible economic slowdown, that puts a premium on growth stocks again,” said Chuck Carlson, CEO of Horizon Investment Services in Hammond, Indiana.
Stocks have rebounded in recent weeks after a rocky start to the year amid concerns about the Federal Reserve tightening monetary policy to fight inflation and the war in Ukraine. The S&P 500 is down about 4 per cent so far in 2022, after being down as much as 12.5 per cent.
Investors remained concerned about the Ukraine crisis, which has led to a spike in commodity prices that has worsened the outlook for already high inflation.
Global outrage spread on Monday at civilian killings in northern Ukraine, where a mass grave and tied bodies shot at close range were found in a town taken back from Russian troops. The deaths are likely to galvanise the United States and Europe into additional sanctions against Moscow.
In company news, Starbucks Corp SBUX.O shares fell 3.7 per cent after former CEO Howard Schultz announced the suspension of the company’s stock repurchasing program.
US-listed shares of Chinese companies such as Alibaba BABA.N jumped after China proposed revising confidentiality rules involving offshore listings.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by a 1.32-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.74-to-1 ratio favored advancers.
The S&P 500 posted 12 new 52-week highs and three new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 51 new highs and 59 new lows.
About 11 billion shares changed hands in US exchanges, compared with the 13.5 billion daily average over the last 20 sessions. — Reuters
