Wall Street bought the dip in riskier assets on Thursday ahead of the first trickle of government data since the start of the shutdown.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 144 points, or 0.3%. The S&P 500 was up 0.6%. The Nasdaq Composite was up 0.9%. The major indexes approached their highest closing levels on record before paring some of their gains in the final hour of trading.
The yield on the 2-year Treasury note rose to 3.48% to snap a three-day streak of falling yields. The 10-year yield was up to 3.99%.
The consumer price index for September is due out Friday at 8:30 a.m. ET. The report was slated to come out just over a week ago, but the shutdown has suspended most government data releases. Heading into the report, some traders appeared to trim bets on two rate cuts through the end of the year: Odds of a half-point in cuts through December dipped to 91.9% from 95.5% on Wednesday, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics said earlier this month it would publish the report to allow the Social Security Administration to meet a deadline related to inflation-adjusted benefit payments. It said no other releases will be rescheduled or produced until regular government services resume.
After falling sharply on Wednesday, more speculative parts of the market like quantum computing, crypto, and nuclear were on the rebound.
“What a difference a day makes,” writes Mizuho’s Daniel O’Regan. “We are seeing the exact opposite price action of the last few days with crowded longs, high beta fliers and meme stocks regaining lost momentum.”
O’Regan writes that based on client conversations, he feels like many of the moves are driven by quantitative traders, commodity trading advisors, and rebalancing, rather than active managers. He adds that most clients he talks to are waiting for pullbacks in high-quality stocks as we head into the heart of earnings season. Five of the Magnificent Seven stocks will report results in the week ahead, followed by Nvidia in November.
