On the way to its fourth-straight up day in the market, the tech-heavy Nasdaq wound up surpassing 15K for its first time ever, +0.52% on the day to 15,019.80. The S&P 500 met the four-day streak and set its own fresh record closing high — its 50th on the year.
The Dow almost gave away its gains in the last half hour of the session, but still closed up +0.09% — still around 0.70% from setting a new closing high of its own. The small-cap Russell 2000 put up another strong day, +1.02%.
As we are in the dog days of summer, with many market participants out basking in their last rays of sunshine before the season turns, volume was predictably lower. Still, the upward drift we’ve seen this week (and the end of last week) feels like a nice sigh of relief. The Delta variant, one hopes, will be put in check by the FDA clearance of the Pfizer/BioNTech PFE BNTX vaccine — with Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) MRNA likely on the way. Chinese tech and Energy stocks have begun to rally.
Energy stocks gained another +1.6% on the day, with ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) COP putting up a strong +1.13%. Tech stocks continued to perform well, with Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) GOOGL notching a fresh 52-week high. The sectors which underperformed today were Consumer Staples, -0.75%, and Real Estate, -0.72%. Airlines bounced back, behind Delta Air Lines’ DAL +3.37% — again, on more favorable conditions related to fighting Covid-19.
Not all is hunky dory, however: California wildfires continue to burn across millions of acres, having forced some 40K Californians from their homes, including the more densely populated El Dorado County. That fire, called Caldor, is only 9% contained and now reported threatens Lake Tahoe. The Dixie fire, second-largest in California history at currently 1143 square miles, is now 41% contained. Severe heat and drought through the regions are the cause.
Nordstrom (NYSE:JWN) JWN posted big beats on both top and bottom lines in its Q2 report after the bell today: 49 cents per share on $3.66 billion easily swept past the 26 cents per share and $3.38 billion in anticipated sales. Gross margins came in hotter than expected at +35%, with Digital Sales +30% year over year. But shares are selling off in the late session, selling the news after the stock has grown +143% over the past year.
Philadelphia-based Urban Outfitters (NASDAQ:URBN) URBN crushed earnings estimates Tuesday afternoon, with $1.28 per share shooting well past the 79 cents expected and the 35 cents per share reported in the year-ago quarter. Sales of $1.16 billion beat the $1.08 billion in the Zacks consensus, up 44.4% year to date. Yet these shares are also down -4.8% in late trading; Urban Outfitters had been up +59% year to date.
Tomorrow we get a look at Durable Goods Orders for the month of July. A pullback from the strong orders tallied in June are expected. Also non-defense, ex-aircraft goods orders will give us a fresh look at business investment last month. In terms of earnings reports, we get to hear from salesforce.com CRM, Dick’s Sporting Goods DKS and Williams-Sonoma (NYSE:WSM) WSM, among others.
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Tech IPOs With Massive Profit Potential
In the past few years, many popular platforms and like Uber (NYSE:UBER) and Airbnb finally made their way to the public markets. But the biggest paydays came from lesser-known names.
For example, electric carmaker X Peng shot up +299.4% in just 2 months. Think of it this way…
If you had put $5,000 into XPEV at its IPO in September 2020, you could have cashed out with $19,970 in November.
With record amounts of cash flooding into IPOs and a record-setting stock market, this year’s lineup could be even more lucrative.
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salesforce.com, inc. (CRM): Free Stock Analysis Report
ConocoPhillips (COP): Free Stock Analysis Report
Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE): Free Stock Analysis Report
Delta Air Lines, Inc. (NYSE:DAL): Free Stock Analysis Report
Nordstrom, Inc. (JWN): Free Stock Analysis Report
Urban Outfitters, Inc. (URBN): Free Stock Analysis Report
DICKS Sporting Goods, Inc. (DKS): Free Stock Analysis Report
Moderna, Inc. (MRNA): Free Stock Analysis Report
WilliamsSonoma, Inc. (WSM): Free Stock Analysis Report
Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL): Free Stock Analysis Report
BioNTech SE Sponsored ADR (NASDAQ:BNTX): Free Stock Analysis Report
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