A new pandemic-era low for jobless claims was the highlight of another light session on Thursday, as investors prepare for the Memorial Day weekend. Stocks managed to end mostly higher.
Bolstered by a good day for recovery stocks, the Dow had the best performance today by rising 0.41% (or about 140 points) to 34,464.64. Not surprisingly, it also has the biggest gain for the month of May at nearly 1.7% with one day to go. Investors may be concerned about inflation right now, but they’re also pretty excited about ending this pandemic and getting back to normal.
The S&P advanced 0.12% to 4200.88, while the NASDAQ had a tiny decline of 0.01% (or less than 2 points) to 13,736.28. These indices are up 0.5% and down 1.6%, respectively, in May so far.
The economy saw only 406,000 jobless claims last week, which was the fourth straight decline as the trend has been very favorable for a while now. The result was also better than expectations at 425K and the previous week’s result of 444K.
It was another low volume session on Thursday, unless of course you’re talking about the meme stocks. Speculative buying is heating up again and this time its being exemplified by AMC Entertainment (NYSE:AMC), which finished the day higher by more than 35%. It was up by nearly 50% earlier. In case you were wondering, good old GameStop (NYSE:GME) was part of the fun too with a rise of nearly 4.8%.
The big earnings report of the day in this waning season was Salesforce (NYSE:CRM), which announced earnings that topped the Zacks Consensus Estimate by more than 37% with revenue that was up 23% year over year. The cloud software company also offered a guidance that was above expectations. Most impressively though, shares of CRM are up approximately 5% afterhours, as of this writing. Shares of NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA), which was yesterday’s main earnings report, were down 1.35% on Thursday.
Despite having the worst performance for May, the NASDAQ is looking very solid this week with a gain of just under 2% through the first four days. The S&P goes into Friday up by about 1%, while the Dow is up 0.8%. Tomorrow is expected to be super slow, so these results are probably close to how we finish the week. We’ll see...
Today's Portfolio Highlights:
Large-Cap Trader: This is the penultimate session of May 2021 and just ahead of the Memorial Day weekend, so it’s a great time for John to make his monthly adjustment. On Thursday, the editor sold three names for double-digit returns each! The stocks sold today were Logitech (NASDAQ:LOGI) for 15.7%, Evercore (EVER) for 13.9% and SYNNEX (NYSE:SNX) for 12.8%. LOGI had been in the portfolio for four months, while EVER and SNX were each part of the service for two months. The new buys are:
• Apple Computer (NASDAQ:AAPL)
• NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP)
• Huntsman Chemical (NYSE:HUN)
These three large-caps are all major players in their respective fields, which are also highly-ranked industries. They are also Zacks Rank #2s (Buys) with positive earnings surprises in their most recent reports. In fact, each of these names have averaged double-digit beats over the past four quarters. John believes they will do well in the current environment, so he added each with 7% allocations. Read the full write-up for more on all of today’s moves, including an additional bonus idea.
Counterstrike: Shares of Airbnb (ABNB) have been chopping around since a nice earnings beat of 20% a few weeks ago. However, its finally found some post-earnings buying interest after a couple upgrades. It certainly caught Jeremy’s attention, who decided to add this popular homestay site on Thursday with an 11% allocation. The editor also added 3% to Boyd Gaming (NYSE:BYD), which brings it up to a full 15% position. He has a lot of confidence in the stock after it broke the 50-day MA resistance. Read the full write-up for more on today’s moves.
Stocks Under $10: In a recent update, Brian noted that Freightcar America (NASDAQ:RAIL) has “moved up and down in big swings”, which is very unlike a railroad track. Well on Thursday, the stock was on an uptrend and was actually the best performer among all ZU names with a jump of a little over 12%. This portfolio had another name in the top five as well with Cassava Sciences (NASDAQ:SAVA, +9.2%), which is the best performer in the portfolio with an impressive surge of more than 650% in under five months! One more thing, this service also has the best performer over the past 30 days with GT Biopharma (GTBP) jumping nearly 41%.
Commodity Innovators: The first-quarter report for leading steel producer Nucor (NYSE:NUE) back in April was fine, but the company says the second quarter will be the highest earnings in its history! The stock has been performing well of late, so Jeremy decided to add NUE on Thursday to get in before the next report. He expects a move above $110 as the earnings date approaches. Meanwhile, the editor thinks crude is headed back over $70 soon, so he also added ProShares Ultra Bloomberg Crude Oil (UCO) today. This product will move twice as much as the actual crude oil futures contract. NUE is considered a mid-term holding, while UCO is expected to be short term. Read the complete commentary for more specifics on today’s moves.
ETF Investor: "Major indexes closed marginally higher today, led by industrial, commodity and financial companies, after better-than-expected jobs data.
"Stocks have risen this week as investors hope that the Federal Reserve will maintain its supportive monetary policy despite recent uptick in inflation. Many central bank officials have reiterated lately that they are not planning any imminent policy changes. Tech stocks were back in favor earlier this week but today it was the reopening stocks that were surging.
"GPP grew at a 6.4% seasonally-adjusted annual rate in the first quarter, unchanged from the initial estimate. Durable goods orders fell 1.3% last month, versus estimate for a 0.9% gain. All these economic reports signal to an improving economy but the broader recovery remains uneven." -- Neena Mishra
All the Best,
Jim Giaquinto
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