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Kicking Off the Week on a Positive Note
26-Feb-18 16:30 ET
Dow +399.28 at 25709.27, Nasdaq +84.07 at 7421.46, S&P +32.30 at 2779.60

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/2/26/kicking-off-the-week-on-a-positive-note.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks rallied for a second consecutive session on Monday, finishing at their best marks of the day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 1.6%, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite jumped 1.2% apiece. The Russell 2000 underperformed, but still finished with a gain of 0.7%.

For the month of February, the tech-heavy Nasdaq is now in positive territory (+0.1%), while the S&P 500 and the Dow are down a little more than 1.5% apiece. Still, that's up from losses of around 8.7% at their lowest points on February 8.

Friday's breaching of the S&P 500's 50-day simple moving average and the continued decline of the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 15.93, -0.56), which has nearly returned to levels seen prior to Wall Street's big sell off at the beginning of February, helped fuel a bullish bias on Monday. In terms of news, Monday's session was fairly uneventful.

10 of 11 S&P 500 sectors settled in positive territory, with the top-weighted technology (+1.6%) and financials (+1.5%) sectors being among the top-performing groups. The industrials sector (+1.4%) and the lightly-weighted telecom services sector (+1.8%) also outperformed.

With the tech space, Qualcomm (QCOM 66.98, +3.66) showed particular strength, jumping 5.8%, after reports that the company is open to being acquired by Broadcom (AVGO 252.95, -0.76) should Broadcom raise its bid to $160 billion, which is more than $90 per share. HP (HPQ 23.46, +1.33) also outperformed, rising 6.0%, after JPMorgan upgraded HPQ shares to 'Overweight' from 'Neutral' following last week's earnings.

On the downside, the rate-sensitive utilities sector finished in negative territory, losing 0.3%, as Treasury yields climbed intraday to finish just slightly below Friday's closing levels. The yield on the 10-yr note finished one basis point lower at 2.86% after trading as low as 2.83% in the early morning. Meanwhile, the yield on the 2-yr note also lost one basis point, dropping to 2.23%.

Like utilities, the real estate (+0.4%) and materials (+0.5%) sectors also underperformed, but still finished in positive territory.

Monday's economic data was limited to the New Home Sales report for January; New Home Sales hit an annualized rate of 593,000 in January, which is below the revised December rate of 643,000 (from 625,000), and lower than the Briefing.com consensus of 645,000. The key takeaway from the report is that new home sales were down 1.0% year-over-year in January, suggesting perhaps that high prices and rising mortgage rates have curtailed new contract signings.

Looking ahead, investors will receive a number of economic reports on Tuesday: Durable Orders for January (Briefing.com consensus -2.0%) and International Trade in Goods for January (Briefing.com consensus -$72.2 billion) will be released at 8:30 AM ET, the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index for December (Briefing.com consensus +6.4%) and the FHFA Housing Price Index for December (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) will be released at 9:00 AM ET, and the Consumer Confidence Index for February (Briefing.com consensus 126.5) will be released at 10:00 AM ET.

In addition, Jerome Powell will testify before the House Financial Services Committee at 10:00 AM ET on Tuesday, marking his first appearance as Fed Chairman. Mr. Powell's prepared testimony will cross the wires prior to his appearance (8:30 AM ET).

Nasdaq Composite: +7.5% YTD
S&P 500: +4.0% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +4.0% YTD
Russell 2000: +1.6% YTD