Wednesday’s Stock Market Close: US Equities Climb As Investors Cheer Gradual Reopening Of Economy

U.S. stocks jumped on Wednesday in choppy trading on hopes that as more states reopen businesses, the economy can rebound from the devastating impact of the covid-19 pandemic.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared 553.16 points to 25,548.27, while the S&P 500 gained 44.36 points to 3,036.13 and the Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 72.14 points to 9,412.36.

The S&P 500 closed above 3,000 for the first time since early March.

Wednesday’s volume on the New York Stock Exchange totaled 5.53 billion shares with 2,365 issues advancing, 21 setting new highs, and 607 declining, with seven setting new lows .

Active movers were led by Luckin Coffee Inc. (LK), General Electric Co. (GE) and Ford Motor Co. (F).

All 50 states in the U.S. have now reopened their economies in varying degrees.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the U.S. may avoid a second wave of coronavirus later this year.

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported a sixth consecutive weekly increase in mortgage applications.

The European Commission has released plans for a 750 billion euro ($826.5 billion) recovery fund to aid the countries hardest hit by the virus. Japan launched another massive $1 trillion stimulus package to rescue its economy.

“For the first time in this crisis, we are being bombarded by good news,” said Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at the Leuthold Group. “The S&P 500 finally breaks above its 200-day moving average (3000)” and “more new vaccine drugs look promising.”

Michael Darda, MKM Partners’ chief market strategist and chief economist, said: “Certainly the market has been making a V-pattern upward and there’s been a tremendous amount of skepticism around that but we are just starting now to see some evidence in the data turning. Some better than expected housing numbers. As reopening gets underway, virtually all states now we are starting to see activity bounce off of very low levels.”

But tensions with China remain.

On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared Hong Kong was no longer autonomous, thereby placing its special trade status at risk.

The Trump administration may impose sanctions on Chinese companies and officials over Beijing’s efforts to tighten its control over Hong Kong. President Donald Trump said he will announce his response to the matter by the end of this week.

“[The recent stock rally] is an indication that investors are getting optimistic about the reopening of the economy and the drug-treatment development,” said Katerina Simonetti, senior portfolio manager at UBS Private Wealth. “We hope that it will eventually lead to a normalization in the market, but we have to keep an eye on the re-emergence of virus cases.”

Overnight in Asia, markets finished narrowly mixed. The Shanghai Composite edged down 0.34%; Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slipped 0.36%; while Japan’s Nikkei-225 rose 0.7%.

In Europe markets finished higher, as Britain’s FTSE-100 gained 1.26%, while France’s CAC-40 climbed 1.79% and Germany’s DAX rose 1.33%.

Crude oil futures dropped 4.4% at $32.84 per barrel, Brent crude edged up 0.08% at $35.48. Gold futures rose 0.36%.

The euro gained 0.15% at $1.0999 while the pound sterling slipped 0.64% at $1.2256.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell 2.58% to 0.68% while yield on the 30-year Treasury dropped 0.35% to 1.434%.