Asia Morning US Stocks Advance Over 1P on Recovery Optimism

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By :  ,  Financial Analyst

Asia Morning: US Stocks Advance Over 1% on Recovery Optimism

On Wednesday, U.S. stocks rebounded over 1% on growing optimism toward a quicker-than-expected recovery of the global economy from the coronavirus pandemic. 

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rebounded 369 points (+1.5%) to 24575, the S&P 500 rose 48 points (+1.7%) to 2971, and the Nasdaq 100 was up 186 points (+2.0%) to 9485.


Source: GAIN Capital, TradingView

Energy (+3.82%), Semiconductors & Semiconductor Equipment (+3.42%) and Automobiles & Components (+3.16%) sectors performed the best. In fact, all 11 sectors of the S&P 500 closed higher.

Arconic (ARNC +13.02%), MGM Resorts International (MGM +8.84%), National Oilwell Varco (NOV +7.97%) and Twitter (TWTR +7.86%) were top gainers. Meanwhile, Becton Dickinson (BDX -7.68%), Kohls (KSS -3.91%), Target (TGT -2.87%) and Royal Caribbean Cruises (RCL -3.37%) showed losses.    

Major airline shares - United Airlines (UAL +5.19%), Delta Air Lines (DAL +4.41%) and Southwest Airlines (LUV +5.27%) - were higher.  

Facebook (FB +6.04%) share price closed at a record high of $229.97.

On the technical side, about 30.0% (33.8% in the prior session) of stocks in the S&P 500 Index were trading above their 200-day moving average, and 61.2% (76.0% in the prior session) were above their 20-day moving average.

Minutes of the Federal Reserve's latest monetary-policy stated that the economic outlook is still uncertain due to the lagging effects of the coronavirus pandemic on the global economy.

Later today, U.S. Initial Jobless Claims (a decline to 2.400 million expected), the Markit U.S. Manufacturing Purchasing Mangers' Index (May preliminary reading, 39.5 expected), Existing Home Sales (an annualized rate of 4.22 million units for April expected) and the Conference Board Leading Index (-5.4% on month in April expected) will be reported.

European stocks were broadly higher, with the Stoxx Europe 600 Index gaining 1.0%. Germany's DAX rose 1.3%, the U.K.'s FTSE 100 advanced 1.1% and France's CAC was up 0.9%.

U.S. Treasury prices remained firm, as the benchmark 10-year Treasury yield dropped a further 3.2 basis points to 0.679%.

Spot gold price added $2 to $1,747 an ounce.

Oil prices charged higher after concerns about a supply surplus was eased by an expected reduction of 5 million barrels in U.S. crude-oil stockpiles reported by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. U.S. WTI crude oil futures (June) jumped 4.8% to $33.49 a barrel.

On the forex front, the ICE U.S. Dollar Index dropped 0.4% on day to 99.16. The latest Fed monetary meeting minutes showed that "the economic effects of the pandemic created an extraordinary amount of uncertainty and considerable risks to economic activity in the medium term" and the Fed "was committed to using its full range of tools to support the U.S. economy".
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