Stocks rose on Wednesday as investors snapped a three-day slump on Wall Street heading towards the end of the month and quarter. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped nearly 480 points, while the S&P 500 Index (NYSE: SPY) and Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQ: QQQ) added about 0.9% and 0.5%, respectively.
Here's how the market settled on Wednesday:
S&P 500 Index (NYSE: SPY): +0.87% or +45.05 points to 5,248.62
Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSE: DIA): +1.22% or +478.34 points to 39,769.67
Nasdaq Composite Index (NASDAQ: QQQ): +0.51% or +83.82 points to 16,399.52
Zoom Out:
Despite some early weakness this week, all three major averages are on track to end the month and quarter with gains on Thursday; markets will be closed Friday in observance of the Good Friday in the United States. As of Wednesday's close, the S&P and Dow are both up about 3% and 1.9% on the month, respectively, and 9.6% and 5.5% for the second-quarter. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite also advanced roughly 2% in March and 8.7% for the quarter.
Zoom In:
Investors are currently assessing the potential medium- and long-term impacts of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse on Tuesday, as the Port of Baltimore -- the 11th largest port in the United States -- has been closed until further notice, impacting logistics companies.
In the News:
Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) shares were under pressure on Wednesday after U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla rejected the cryptocurrency exchange's motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) claiming Coinbase acts as an unregistered exchange, broker and clearing agency.
Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) was removed from Wedbush's "Best Ideas List" on Wednesday, as the firm believes the streaming giant may need to find new growth areas in order to support another large rally. Still, Wedbush maintains its Outperform rating on the stock, which has risen more than 30% year-to-date.
"We think it will be much harder for Netflix to impress investors in 2024 vs. 2023. Some of the growth drivers have been fully priced in, such as the password-sharing crackdown. We think there's still some benefit from that, but it's marginal and now expected," Wedbush analysts said in a note to clients, adding that Netflix's ad-supported tier is unlikely to drive earnings growth until 2025.
Carnival Corp (NYSE: CCL) raised its annual profit forecast on Wednesday, as bookings for the rest of 2024 remain at record levels with total customer deposits reaching $7 billion in the first quarter, the company said. The cruise operator now expects full-year adjusted profit per share of $0.98, up from its previous forecast of $0.93.
"The first quarter has been fantastic across the board," CEO Josh Weinstein said during Carnival's earnings call with analysts. "We delivered recore bookings and record customer deposits again this quarter, a great start to the year."
Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) announced it will spend another $2.75 billion in investments to generative AI start-up Anthropic on Wednesday, building on its initial $1.25 billion investment with the goal to provide up to $4 billion in funding. The new round comes weeks after Anthropic launched its newest suite of AI models, called Claude 3, which competes with OpenAI and ChatGPT.
The e-commerce giant maintains a minority stake in Anthropic, but does not have a board seat.
"Generative AI is poised to be the most transformational technology of our time, and we believe our strategic collaboration with Anthropic will further improve our customers' experiences, and look forward to what's next," said Swami Sivasubramanian, VP of data and AI at AWS, in a statement.
Looking Ahead:
Investors will react to economic data including March's final consumer sentiment reading and the second revision to fourth-quarter GDP on Thursday. Walgreens Boots Alliance (NASDAQ: WBA) will also report earnings Wednesday morning as the second-quarter earnings season winds down.