Stocks continued Monday's momentum all throughout Tuesday's session after European Union leaders agreed to a new fiscal stimulus package to help support the economies of the 27-country bloc as they recover from the coronavirus pandemic. After almost five days of discussions, the E.U. agreed to create a 750 billion euro ($858 billion) recovery fund that will see half of the funds distributed through grants and the other half through low-interest loans. Wall Street investors expect Congress to make a similar decision sometime this week since some of the CARES Act programs are set to expire at the end of the month.
Here's how the market settled on Tuesday:
S&P 500 Index (NYSE: SPY): +0.17% or +5.44 points to 3,257.28
Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSE: DIA): +0.60% or +159.53 points to 26,840.40
Nasdaq Composite Index (NASDAQ: QQQ): -0.81% or -86.73 points to 10,680.36
For Major Stock News, big tech stocks--Facebook (NASDAQ: FB), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL)--all weighed down the Nasdaq as market participants sold-off their tech profits. Those profits were moved into value stocks like banks--Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), Citigroup (NYSE: C), Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS), JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM), Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS)--and major airlines--American (NASDAQ: AAL), Delta (NYSE: DAL), Southwest (NYSE: LUV) and United (NASDAQ: UAL). Energy stocks also had a big day after Devon Energy (NYSE: DVN) was upgraded by Simmons (NASDAQ: SFNC) to an overweight rating. Apache (NASDAQ: APA), Chevron (NYSE: CVX), Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM), Halliburton (NYSE: HAL) and Occidental Petroleum (NYSE: OXY) all gained.
For Sector Performance, most industries gained during Tuesday's session, with only Information Technology -1.06%, Communication Services -0.41%, Consumer Discretionary -0.36% and Health Care -0.06% lagging behind. The majority of sectors that settled with performance gains include: Energy +6.15%, Financials +1.91%, Industrials +1.31%, Consumer Staples +0.98%, Materials +0.85%, Utilities +0.46% and Real Estate +0.01%.
For Commodities and Currency, crude oil futures rose on Tuesday due to more positive coronavirus vaccine news and new E.U. stimulus. West Texas Intermediate (NYSE: USO) gained over 2.8% to settle at $41.96 per barrel, while Brent Crude (NYSE: BNO) increased 3% to price at $44.65 each. Gold (NYSE: GLD) also reached a nine-year high, with spot gold climbing 1.5% to $1,842.52 per ounce and futures also increasing 1.5% to $1,843.90 per ounce. Finally, the U.S. Dollar (NYSE: UUP) fell 0.1% against other currencies following the euro's lead on Tuesday.
As the market head into the mid-week, investors will focus on more coronavirus headlines as well as more corporate earnings including Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA).