U.S. Major Indexes Hover Near Record Highs

Barry Adams
16 Oct, 2024
New York City

Stocks on Wall Street traded sideways as benchmark indexes attempted to surpass previous record highs set earlier in the week. 

The S&P 500 index edged up 0.1%, but the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index decreased 0.2%. 

Investors have been bidding up stocks after payrolls expanded at a faster-than-expected pace in September and inflation continued to trend lower toward the Fed's target rate of 2%. 

Moreover, investors returned to add positions to artificial intelligence-linked stocks amid a growing appetite for risky stocks. 

Market sentiment further improved after Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and Citigroup reported earnings exceeding market expectations. 

Earnings beat from Morgan Stanley and United Airlines also supported broader market levels in Wednesday's trading. 

Crude oil prices hovered near two-week lows as rising global supply outweighed elevated Iran-Israel tensions, denting stocks in the energy sector for the third day in a row. 

 

U.S. Indexes and Treasury Yields

The S&P 500 index increased 0.1% to 5,820.49, the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.2% to 18,268.55, and the Russell 2000 index advanced 0.8% to 2,267.45. 

The yield on 2-year Treasury notes edged lower to 3.93%, 10-year Treasury notes inched down to 4.01%, and 30-year Treasury bonds inched higher to 4.29%.

WTI crude oil increased $0.16 to $70.74 a barrel, and natural gas prices edged down 7 cents to $2.42 a thermal unit.

Gold fell by $22.83 to $2,683.33 an ounce, and silver increased by $0.56 to $32.02.

The dollar index, which weighs the US currency against a basket of foreign currencies, edged higher to 103.27.

 

U.S. Stock Movers

United Airlines rose 7.5% to $68.90 after the company announced a stock repurchase plan as part of its quarterly earnings update. 

The airline said it plans to buyback up to $1.5 billion of its stock and warrants originally issued to the U.S. Treasury, the first such purchase since before the COVID-19 pandemic. 

In the quarter, the company repurchased in the open market just over 2 million shares of its common stock in connection with the exercise of roughly 6.4 million warrants issued to the U.S. Treasury under the CARES Act and Payroll Support Program.

The company repurchased shares at an average price of $39.99. 

The repurchase of these shares eliminated the dilution associated with the warrants exercised and are separate from the new stock repurchase plan of $1.5 billion. 

Revenue in the third quarter increased 2.5% to $14.8 billion from $14.5 billion, net income declined 15.1% to $965 million, and diluted earnings per share dropped to $2.90 from $3.42 a year ago. 

Morgan Stanley increased 7.5% to $120.50 after the financial services company reported better-than-expected revenue and earnings in the third quarter. 

Revenue increased to $15.4 billion from $13.3 billion, net income advanced to $3.2 billion from $2.4 billion, and diluted earnings per share rose to $1.88 from $1.38 a year ago. 

Revenue in the institutional securities division increased to $6.8 billion from $5.7 billion, wealth management jumped to $7.2 billion from $6.4 billion, and investment management advanced to $1.5 billion from $1.3 billion a year ago. 

The wealth management unit attracted $64 billion in new assets, increasing total client assets to $6 trillion. 

Investment management unit received a net long-term asset flow of $7 billion, and assets at the end of the quarter increased to $1.6 trillion.