From Briefing.com:
|
| The stock market spent much of Wednesday's session in negative territory as weakness in the broader market outweighed Apple's (AAPL 157.14, +7.09) post-earnings report rally. However, the S&P 500 (+0.1%) managed to sneak into positive territory in the final minutes to eke out its second win of the week. The Nasdaq (unch) finished just short of its unchanged mark while the Dow (+0.2%) outperformed, cruising to its sixth-consecutive record close.
Apple advanced to a new record high on Wednesday after beating both top and bottom line estimates. The tech titan also issued encouraging guidance, suggesting that its much-anticipated iPhone 8 release is on schedule. AAPL shares settled higher by 4.7% and were largely the reason that the top-weighted technology group (+0.5%), and the broader market, finished in positive territory.
In total, five of the eleven sectors--technology (+0.5%), utilities (+0.5%), industrials (+0.4%), financials (+0.1%), and materials (+0.1%)--finished Wednesday's session in the green. Southern (SO 49.78, +1.25) carried the utilities space to its third-consecutive victory, rallying 2.6% on better than expected earnings and revenues.
Meanwhile, in the industrial sector, transports got their first win of the week, sending the Dow Jones Transportation Average higher by 0.3%. The sector's top performer was Ametek (AME 64.23, +2.61), which climbed 4.2% to a new all-time high after beating both top and bottom line estimates and raising its earnings guidance for the year.
On the downside, the telecom services space (-1.3%) finished at the bottom of the leaderboard as investors took some money off the table following the sector's six-session rally. Despite today's slide, the telecom services sector sits 7.1% above where it settled on July 25. The real estate space (-0.5%) also showed notable weakness, but the remaining laggards finished with losses of no more than 0.3%.
Pioneer Natural Resources (PXD 145.68, -17.59) led the energy sector (-0.3%) lower, plunging 10.8%, after lowering its forecast for production growth. PXD shares settled at a 15-month low.
However, a positive performance from crude oil, which climbed 0.9% to $49.61/bbl, helped keep the energy sector's loss in check. The commodity held a loss of around 1.0% on Wednesday morning, but moved sharply higher not long after the Energy Information Administration released its weekly crude inventory report.
The EIA report showed that U.S. crude inventories declined by 1.5 million barrels for the week ended July 28. The reading was slightly below the consensus, which called for a draw of 3.1 million barrels.
Small caps finished solidly lower on Wednesday, pushing the Russell 2000 lower by 1.1%. The small-cap index closed right at its 50-day simple moving average (1,413.93), which has acted as an area of support since June 1.
In the bond market, U.S. Treasuries settled mixed; the 2-yr yield jumped two basis points to 1.36%, the 10-yr yield climbed one basis point to 2.26%, and the 30-yr yield slipped one basis point to 2.85%.
Reviewing Wednesday's economic data, which was limited to the ADP Employment Change Report for July and the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index:
- The ADP National Employment Report showed an increase of 178,000 in July (Briefing.com consensus 187,000) while the June reading was revised higher to 191,000 from 158,000.
- The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 2.8% to follow last week's 0.4% increase.
On Thursday, investors will receive several economic reports, including the weekly Initial Claims Report (Briefing.com consensus 242K) at 8:30 ET, June Factory Orders (Briefing.com consensus 2.9%) at 10:00 ET, and the July ISM Services Index (Briefing.com consensus 56.9) also at 10:00 ET.
- Nasdaq Composite +18.2% YTD
- S&P 500 +10.7 YTD
- Dow Jones Industrial Average +11.4% YTD
- Russell 2000 +4.1% YTD
|
|
