Dow, S&P 500 Rise; Retail Sales; Trump Tariffs, Recession Fears; Nvidia, Palantir, Intel, Tesla, More Movers
The economic data didn’t get any better on Monday, but the stock market was rising anyway.
The S&P 500 was up 0.3%, while the Dow was up 182 points, or 0.4%. The Nasdaq Composite was down 0.2%. Only 81 S&P 500 stocks were falling, while the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF was up 0.9%.
The yield on the 2-year Treasury note rose to 4.05%, but the 10-year yield was down to 4.3%.
February retail sales came in weaker than expected, while the New York Fed’s Empire State Manufacturing Survey showed business activity dropped significantly in March. The headline general business conditions index fell 26 points to negative 20, compared to 5.7 in February.
“Input price increases climbed for a third straight month to hit their fastest pace in more than two years,” said Richard Deitz, economic research advisor at the New York Fed. “In addition, supply availability is expected to contract and firms continued to grow less optimistic about the future business outlook.”
The numbers play into a wave of recent data releases that show uncertainty fueled by unpredictable policies out of the White House is having a real impact on consumer and businesses sentiment. Of course, the S&P 500 had already fallen 10% from its recent highs, so much of that may already be baked into the market.
Jeff deGraaf, head of technical research at Renaissance Macro Research, argues sentiment is more bearish than it would normally be given the extent of the S&P 500’s decline.
“In other words, people are more bearish than the market’s performance can explain, and that tends to be bullish,” deGraaf writes.
