• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Wall Street kicks off October with gains, boosted by economic optimism

October 1, 2021 by David Barret Leave a Comment

October 1, 2021

By Stephen Culp

(Reuters) – Wall Street advanced in a broad rally on Friday, after sorting out conflicting news about the economy, the battle against COVID, and legislative wrangling in Washington at the start of the fourth quarter.

All three major U.S. stock indexes began trending higher by late afternoon, buoyed by economically sensitive cyclicals.

“It’s the first day of trading in a new quarter so it’s common to see stocks move in and out of the plus and minus columns,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities in New York. “September played its traditional role by cooling down the market and probably presenting a buying opportunity.”

Merck & Co Inc revealed that a recent study showed its experimental oral drug for COVID-19 cut risk of death and hospitalization by about 50%, sending its shares jumping about 10% and boosting economic reopening sentiment.

The news provided “another reason to be optimistic,” said Cardillo. “It lessens the threat of the virus and obviously that means more people going back to work, more spending.”

While U.S. President Joe Biden signed into law a stop-gap bill to continue the government through Dec. 3, lawmakers only succeeded in kicking the can down the road.

This lack of resolution helped prompt rating agency Fitch to issue a warning that the United States’ ‘AAA’ credit rating could be at risk.

A host of economic data released on Friday showed increased consumer spending and accelerated factory activity and elevated inflation growth, a formula that could help nudge the U.S. Federal Reserve toward shortening its timeline for tightening its accommodative monetary policy.

Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker repeated his view expressed in a speech delivered on Wednesday that he believes the central bank should begin tapering its asset purchases “soon,” but reiterated that he does not expect it to hike key interest rates until late next year or early 2023.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 465.23 points, or 1.37%, to 34,309.15, the S&P 500 gained 46.2 points, or 1.07%, at 4,353.74 and the Nasdaq Composite added 80.37 points, or 0.56%, at 14,528.95.

All 11 major sectors in the S&P 500 were higher, with healthcare stocks lagging.

The sector’s gains were capped by a 11.8% drop in shares of COVID vaccine maker Moderna Inc in the wake of the Merck news.

Economic optimism prompted value stocks outperform growth, and transports and smallcaps to outperform the broader market.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by a 2.19-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.51-to-1 ratio favored advancers.

The S&P 500 posted 7 new 52-week highs and 9 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 55 new highs and 129 new lows.

(Reporting by Stephen Culp; Editing by Richard Chang)

Source Link Wall Street kicks off October with gains, boosted by economic optimism

David Barret
David Barret

Related posts:

  1. U.S. casino stocks fall with jitters over Macau regulations, COVID-19 outbreak
  2. Extra Crunch roundup: BNPL bonanza, scraping Toast’s S-1/A, early-stage SaaS pricing
  3. Burro raises $10.9M for autonomous produce field transport
  4. Fiveable lands $10M Series A to become ‘the hallways of the educational internet’

Filed Under: News

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

  • This Small Tweak To Brain Chemistry May Have Given Homo Sapiens The Competitive Edge
  • “This Is Illegal”: NASA Reportedly Ordered To Destroy Important OCO Satellite
  • What Is Stendhal Syndrome? The Curious Condition Where Panic Attacks Meet Art
  • Meet Scotty, The Biggest T. Rex Ever Found Aka The “Rex Of Rexes”
  • Australian Skinks Have Evolved Snake Venom Resistance 25 Times (Give Them A Break, Snakes)
  • Curiosity Turns 13: Why Curiosity Stopped Singing Itself Happy Birthday
  • The Talipot Palm Produces 24 Million Flowers, “The Most Prolific Sexual Spectacle Of The Plant Kingdom”
  • Fibermaxxing: Valid Health Hack Or A Fast Pass To Flatulence?
  • Spanish Flu Genome Resurrected From 107-Year-Old Lung, Revealing Deadly Mutations
  • A NASA Nuclear Reactor On The Moon? Bold Proposal Is Unfeasible By 2030 – Here’s Why
  • Giant Virus With Longest-Ever Tail Lurks In The Pacific Ocean
  • This Danish Zoo Wants You To Donate Your Pets To Feed Its Predators
  • An “Unknown Biogeographic Barrier” Stops Deep-Sea Jellyfish Crossing The Atlantic
  • Some Giant Predatory Dinosaurs Had Barks (Or At Least Slashes) Worse Than Their Bite
  • World-First Gene Therapy Improves Vision For Man With Rare, Previously Untreatable Form Of Blindness
  • Exceptional 183-Million-Year-Old Fossil With Soft Tissues Intact Is New Species Of Giant Marine Reptile
  • White Raven: This Normally Black Bird Can Be Surprisingly Pale
  • Solar Systems 100 Times Smaller Than Ours Are Possible – Thanks To Rogue Planets
  • North Sea “Sinkites” Appear To Defy Rules Of Geology On Never-Before-Seen Scale
  • The Iberian Ribbed Newt Might Just Have The World’s Most Metal Defense Mechanism
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version