Stocks climbed higher on Monday as Wall Street saw positive momentum from the unsuccessful assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump on Saturday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose over 200 points, while the S&P 500 Index and Nasdaq Composite advanced about 0.3% and 0.4%, respectively.
Here's how the market settled on Monday:
S&P 500 Index (NYSE: SPY): +0.28% or +15.87 points to 5,631.22
Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSE: DIA): +0.53% or +210.82 points to 40,211.72
Nasdaq Composite Index (NASDAQ: QQQ): +0.40% or +74.12 points to 18,472.57
Moving Markets:
UBS Global Wealth Management Chief Investment Officer Mark Haefele wrote in a Monday note that while Trump's attempted assassination "adds a new layer of complexity," to the 2024 presidential election cycle, the firm does not advise traders to make big changes to their portfolios in response to dramatic events.
"To manage potential election-related volatility, investors can use defensive structured investment strategies, such as capital preservation or yield-generating approaches for election-sensitive stocks or cyclical sectors like energy, industrials, and financials," Haefele said.
FedWatch:
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Monday that the central bank may issue interest rate cuts before inflation reduces to its target of 2%.
"The implication of that is that if you wait until inflation gets all the way down to 2%, you've probably waited too long, because the tightening that you're doing, or the level of tightness that you have, is still having effects which will probably drive inflation below 2%," Powell said at the Economic Club of Washington D.C.
"What increases that confidence in that is more good inflation data, and lately here we have been getting some of that," Powell added, also noting that a "hard landing" for the U.S. economy is no longer "a likely scenario."
On the Earnings Front:
Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) reported second-quarter earnings that topped Wall Street expectations as better-than-expected fixed income results balanced out smaller-than-expected loan loss provisions. The bank's fixed income revenue rose 17% to $3.18 billion, while its provision for credit losses fell 54% to $282 million, coming in below expectations.
BlackRock (NYSE: BLK) posted second-quarter results mostly in-line with analyst estimates on Monday, as the fund manager reported a record $10.6 trillion assets under management on strong inflows into the firm's exchange-traded funds (ETFs) throughout the first half of the year.
"BlackRock generated nearly $140 billion of total net inflows in the first half of 2024, including $82 billion in the second quarter resulting in 3% organic base fee growth," BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said Monday. "Organic growth was driven by private markets, retail active fixed income, and surging flows into our ETFs, which had their best start to a year on record."
In the News:
Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG) is reportedly in advanced talks to acquire cybersecurity firm Wiz for $23 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter. Wiz, which was founded in 2020, provides cloud security offerings that give clients insight into a company's full cloud presence. If completed, this would be Google's largest-ever acquisition.
Macy's (NYSE: M) shares came under pressure on Monday after its board unanimously decided to end negotiations with activist investors Arkhouse and Brigade, who were looking to take the legacy department store private for about $6.9 billion, as the proposal "lacks certainty of financing and does not deliver compelling value."
For Tuesday:
Market participants will react to U.S. retail sales numbers for June on Tuesday, as well as earnings reports from companies including UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH), Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS), State Street (NYSE: STT), Charles Schwab (NYSE: SCHW), and PNC Financial Services (NYSE: PNC).