By Geoffrey Smith
Investing.com -- U.S. stock markets opened mostly higher again on Wednesday, with cyclicals and old-economy stocks leading the charge, recovering some of their underperformance vis-a-vis tech stocks and defensives over the last couple of months.
By 9:37 AM ET (1337 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 340 points or 1.4% at 25,335 points, while the S&P 500 was up 0.8%, while the extent of the rotation out of tech stocks was illustrated by the Nasdaq Composite falling 0.2%.
Some of the biggest gainers were old-economy industrials and banks, the latter in particular having been spooked recently by fears that the Federal Reserve will resort to sub-zero interest rates next year. The notion of a quick and robust rebound, already strengthened by TV footage of a Memorial Day weekend where 'animal spirits' appeared generally unleashed, received further support from a clear rebound in the Richmond Federal Reserve's monthly business survey: the manufacturing index rebounded to -27 from -53, while the services index recovered to -48 from -87.
The Dallas Fed's monthly survey is due later, as is the Fed's Beige Book roundup.
JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) and Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) stock both rebounded 3.8%, while General Electric (NYSE:GE) stock rose 6.3%, as participants took a slightly less bearish view on the outlook for its troubled aviation unit.
At the other end of the table, money flooded out of those stocks which had seemed the best refuge during the worst of the pandemic's effects. Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) stock fell 2.2%, while Zoom Video (NASDAQ:ZM) fell 6.0%. Shopify (NYSE:SHOP) stock and Beyond Meat (NASDAQ:BYND) stock both fell 7.4%.
Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) stock also fell sharply for a second day after another filing showing that the biotech company's insiders sold stock in the wake of the company's $1.3 billion capital increase last week. The company has drawn criticism for issuing partial test results for its experimental Covid-19 antiviral drug, which propelled the stock to an all-time high just before the share sale. The stock 11.6% and is now down nearly one-third from the placement price.
In other markets, U.S. Crude Oil futures cooled off after their recent rally ahead of American Petroleum Institute inventory data at 4:30 PM ET. WTI was down 2.7% at $33.43 a barrel. Gold Futures, meanwhile, fell 0.5% to a three-week low while the US Dollar Index Futures was roughly unchanged.