Wall Street staged the second rally this week as investors were encouraged by strong quarterly retail sales from Target (NYSE: TGT) and the lifting of stay-at-home orders across the United States. In addition, Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) both reached all-time highs as market participants funneled money into major e-commerce stocks. Reopening hopes outweighed an increase in U.S.-China tensions and FOMC minutes that reveal coronavirus second wave fears for the overall economy.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate passed new legislation that calls for a company to be barred from listing securities on U.S. stock exchanges if it has not complied with the U.S. accounting board's audits for three consecutive years, according the The Financial Times. The Times noted that the bill also requires foreign companies to disclose whether they are owned or controlled by a foreign government. Although the bill still needs to be passed by the House of Representatives to be a law, shares of Chinese companies Alibaba (NYSE: BABA), Baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU), iQiyi (NASDAQ: IQ) and JD.com (NASDAQ: JD) all fell during Wednesday's session.
In addition, the Federal Reserve released its April 28-29 Federal Open Market Committee minutes, showing central bankers voted to keep interest rates in a range between 0% and 0.25% until economy recovery is firmly in place. "Participants commented that, in addition to weighing heavily on economic activity in the near term, the economic effects of the pandemic created an extraordinary amount of uncertainty and considerable risks to economic activity in the medium term," the minutes read. FOMC also noted that a second wave of the coronavirus could discourage companies for making capital investments and rehiring, which would further harm recovery.
Here's how the market settled for the mid-week:
S&P 500 Index (NYSE: SPY): +1.67% or +48.67 points to 2,971.61
Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSE: DIA): +1.52% or +369.04 points to 24,575.90
Nasdaq Composite Index (NASDAQ: QQQ): +2.08% or +190.67 points to 9,375.78
In Stock Sector News, every sector rose during Wednesday's rally as investors placed bets on economic reopening. The performance gains were as follows: Energy +3.82%, Communication Services +2.70%, Financials +2.22%, Information Technology +2.12%, Industrials +1.80%, Materials +1.63%, Consumer Discretionary +1.41%, Consumer Staples +1.09%, Real Estate +0.85%, Utilities +0.50% and Health Care +0.12%.
In Commodity and Currency News, crude oil futures continued to increase during Wednesday's session. West Texas Intermediate (NYSE: USO) increased almost +5% to price at $33.54 a barrel and Brent Crude (NYSE: BNO) gained +0.62% to cost above $35 per barrel. Gold (NYSE: GLD) futures also rose as investors begin to fear potential inflation, with the yellow metal's price increasing +0.33% to $1,751 per ounce. Finally, the U.S. Dollar (NYSE: UUP) was also met with gains of +0.14%.
For Thursday, market participants will continue to weigh state reopening news with economic data; the U.S. Labor Department is scheduled to release weekly jobless claims.