Sector Investing

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Trimming Weekly Losses
28-Jun-18 16:25 ET
Dow +98.46 at 24216.05, Nasdaq +58.60 at 7503.71, S&P +16.68 at 2716.05

https://www.briefing.com/investor/markets/stock-market-update/2018/6/28/trimming-weekly-losses.htm

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks rebounded on Thursday, reclaiming around a third of their weekly losses. The S&P 500 advanced 0.6%, but some late selling left it just a tick below its 50-day moving average. The Nasdaq did a little better, adding 0.8%, while the Dow and the Russell 2000 underperformed, climbing 0.4% and 0.3%, respectively.

There wasn't much going on at the macro level on Thursday, but there were plenty of corporate headlines.

Amazon (AMZN 1701.45, +40.94) received perhaps the most attention after announcing a deal to acquire online pharmacy start-up PillPack. CVS Health (CVS 65.78, -4.27) and Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA 59.70, -6.56) tumbled 6.1% and 9.9%, respectively, in response to the news.

Package delivery giants FedEx (FDX 226.67, -3.08) and UPS (UPS 105.88, -2.50) also fell on Amazon-related news, dropping 1.3% and 2.3%, respectively, after the internet retail giant announced it is inviting entrepreneurs to form small companies to carry packages over the last leg of the delivery journey.

Elsewhere, Chipotle (CMG 428.36, -28.88) tumbled 6.3% after CEO Brian Niccol failed to provide future growth plan details in a conference call to investors, Starbucks (SBUX 48.54, -1.30) declined 2.6% after CFO Scott Maw announced his retirement (effective November 30), and tech consulting firm Accenture (ACN 164.50, +9.16)rallied 5.9% afterreporting above-consensus earnings and revenues for its fiscal third quarter and raising its profit guidance for FY18.

Nine of eleven S&P 500 sectors finished Thursday in positive territory, with energy (-0.1%) and utilities (unch) being the outliers. After leading Wednesday's sell off, the top-weighted technology (+1.1%) and financials (+0.9%) sectors were among the top-performing groups on Thursday, providing an extra boost to sentiment.

Away from equities, WTI crude futures hit $74.00/bbl for the first time since November 2014 before falling back to $73.37/bbl; still, that's a daily gain of 0.9%. Meanwhile, U.S. Treasuries finished modestly lower, leaving yields in the green. The benchmark 10-yr yield climbed to 2.85% from 2.83%.

Reviewing Thursday's economic data, which included the third estimate of first quarter GDP and the weekly Initial Claims report:

The third estimate of first quarter GDP pointed to an expansion of 2.0% (Briefing.com consensus 2.2%). The second estimate came in at 2.2%.
The key takeaway from the report is that personal spending was weak in the first quarter, yet the relevant takeaway today is that this is a dated number and a pickup in personal spending is a key reason why many Q2 GDP forecasts have a four-handle on them.
The latest weekly initial jobless claims count totaled 227,000, while the Briefing.com consensus expected a reading of 220,000. Today's tally was above the unrevised prior week count of 218,000. As for continuing claims, they declined to 1.705 million from a revised count of 1.726 million (from 1.723 million).

Looking ahead to Friday, investors will receive Personal Income, Personal Spending, and PCE Prices for May at 8:30 AM ET, the Chicago PMI for June at 9:45 AM ET, and the final reading of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for June at 10:00 AM ET.

Nasdaq Composite +8.7% YTD
Russell 2000 +7.1% YTD
S&P 500 +1.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average -2.0% YTD