MARKET COMMENTARY
Market Wrap: Stocks, Bonds, Commodities
On Wednesday, U.S. stocks rallied leading major indexes to gain over 1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 408 points (+1.24%) to 33,420, the S&P 500 rose 48 points (+1.19%) to 4,158, and the Nasdaq 100 gained 163 points (+1.22%) to 13,589.
Banks (+4.46%), automobiles (+4.03%), and semiconductors (+2.42%) stock sectors led the market higher.
Tesla (TSLA) rose 4.41%. Chief executive Elon Musk revealed at the company's shareholders meeting that it is working on two new vehicle models.
Nvidia (NVDA) jumped 3.30%, and cloud-based software firm ServiceNow (NOW) added 5.27%. Both companies announced plans to jointly develop generative artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities.
Alphabet (GOOGL) climbed 1.11%, Amazon.com (AMZN) advanced 1.85%, and Meta Plaforms (META) gained 1.53%.
Western Alliance Bancorp (WAL) surged 10.19%. The regional bank reported a deposit growth in the current quarter.
Target (TGT) rose 2.58%. The discount retailer posted better-than-expected first-quarter sales and earnings.
Regarding U.S. economic data, the number of housing starts rose 2.2% on month in April (vs -1.5% expected), and the number of building permits dropped 1.5% (vs +0.2% expected).
The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield rose 4.3 basis points further to 3.577%.
European stocks closed mixed. The DAX 40 rose 0.34%, while the CAC 40 declined 0.09%, and the FTSE 100 was down 0.36%.
U.S. WTI crude futures increased $1.80 to $72.69 a barrel. The U.S. Energy Department reported an addition of 5.04 million barrels in crude-oil stockpiles (vs a reduction of 0.92 million barrels expected).
Gold price dropped $6 to $1,982 an ounce.
Market Wrap: Forex
The U.S. dollar got firmer against other major currencies. The dollar index rose to 102.85.
EUR/USD fell 24 pips to 1.0838, while GBP/USD was little changed at 1.2487.
USD/JPY jumped 126 pips to 137.65. This morning, Japan's data showed that trade deficit narrowed to 432.4 billion yen in April (vs 690.0 billion yen expected), with export growth slowing to 2.6% on year (vs 3.0% expected).
AUD/USD added 6 pips to 0.6662.
USD/CHF gained 21 pips to 0.8986, while USD/CAD slipped 33 pips to 1.3449.
Bitcoin managed to hold the $27,000 level and climbed to $27,400.
Market Wrap: Stocks, Bonds, Commodities
On Wednesday, U.S. stocks rallied leading major indexes to gain over 1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 408 points (+1.24%) to 33,420, the S&P 500 rose 48 points (+1.19%) to 4,158, and the Nasdaq 100 gained 163 points (+1.22%) to 13,589.
Banks (+4.46%), automobiles (+4.03%), and semiconductors (+2.42%) stock sectors led the market higher.
Tesla (TSLA) rose 4.41%. Chief executive Elon Musk revealed at the company's shareholders meeting that it is working on two new vehicle models.
Nvidia (NVDA) jumped 3.30%, and cloud-based software firm ServiceNow (NOW) added 5.27%. Both companies announced plans to jointly develop generative artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities.
Alphabet (GOOGL) climbed 1.11%, Amazon.com (AMZN) advanced 1.85%, and Meta Plaforms (META) gained 1.53%.
Western Alliance Bancorp (WAL) surged 10.19%. The regional bank reported a deposit growth in the current quarter.
Target (TGT) rose 2.58%. The discount retailer posted better-than-expected first-quarter sales and earnings.
Regarding U.S. economic data, the number of housing starts rose 2.2% on month in April (vs -1.5% expected), and the number of building permits dropped 1.5% (vs +0.2% expected).
The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield rose 4.3 basis points further to 3.577%.
European stocks closed mixed. The DAX 40 rose 0.34%, while the CAC 40 declined 0.09%, and the FTSE 100 was down 0.36%.
U.S. WTI crude futures increased $1.80 to $72.69 a barrel. The U.S. Energy Department reported an addition of 5.04 million barrels in crude-oil stockpiles (vs a reduction of 0.92 million barrels expected).
Gold price dropped $6 to $1,982 an ounce.
Market Wrap: Forex
The U.S. dollar got firmer against other major currencies. The dollar index rose to 102.85.
EUR/USD fell 24 pips to 1.0838, while GBP/USD was little changed at 1.2487.
USD/JPY jumped 126 pips to 137.65. This morning, Japan's data showed that trade deficit narrowed to 432.4 billion yen in April (vs 690.0 billion yen expected), with export growth slowing to 2.6% on year (vs 3.0% expected).
AUD/USD added 6 pips to 0.6662.
USD/CHF gained 21 pips to 0.8986, while USD/CAD slipped 33 pips to 1.3449.
Bitcoin managed to hold the $27,000 level and climbed to $27,400.