It was a choppy start to the small trading week, with stocks costs time in both clear and halfhearted territory Tuesday. Bears gained the upper hand in the day, though, with the three major indexes ending another day in the red.
Even if this week’s fiscal calendar is honestly thin, data from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) this morning showed that try in the air force sector ticked up to 56.9% in August – the highest level since April – from July’s 56.7%.
“This is the most recent piece of data to suggest the economy remains hard-wearing and as such the market takeaway is that this gives the Fed more room to take up again raising rates,” says Michael Reinking, senior market strategist for the New York Stock Chat. “Futures markets are now pricing in a 75% chance of a 75 basis-point hike later this month from a coin flip late last week.” A basis point is one-one hundredth of a percentage point.
In result to today’s ISM data, the 10-year Reserves yield rose to its loftiest level since mid-June. This, in turn, weighed on shares in the interaction air force (-1.3%) and equipment (-0.6%) sectors, with names such as streaming giant Netflix (NFLX, -3.4%) and chipmaker Intel (INTC, -2.8%) seeing notable declines.
As for the major indexes, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 0.7% to 11,544, its seventh honest loss. The S&P 500 Index shed 0.4% to 3,908, and the Dow Jones Manufacturing Average gave back 0.6% to 31,145.
Other news in the stock market today:
- The small-cap Russell 2000 shed 1% to land at 1,792.
- U.S. crude futures posted a modest gain to end at $86.88 per barrel.
- Gold futures fell 0.6% to end at $1,712.90 an ounce.
- Bitcoin spiraled 5.4% to $18,817.97. (Bitcoin trades 24 hours a day; prices reported here are as of 4 p.m.)
- Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY) stock slumped 18.4% after Friday’s death of the home goods seller’s chief fiscal officer, Gustavo Arnal, was ruled a suicide by New York City’s medical examiner. “The entire Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. establishment is very much saddened by this shocking loss,” the company said in a proclamation. Laura Crossen, BBBY’s chief accounting officer, will take over as finance chief on an interim basis. Bed Bath & Beyond gave a affair update last week in which it said it would close underperforming stores and issue a common stock donation.
- ADT (ADT) rose 16.4% after the home wellbeing specialist scored $1.65 billion in new funds from State Farm and Alphabet’s (GOOGL, -1.0%) Google. The funding will be used to “support product innovation,” and “expand access for more customers to smart home innovation and technologies,” ADT said in a proclamation. The cheap stock under $10 is now up more than 35% from its June lows.
Billionaire Investors’ Largest Q2 Stock Buys
It’s apt increasingly clear that the summer rally in stocks was not the start of a new bull market. “The 17% rally off the June lows appears to have been just a typical bear market rally,” says Savita Subramanian, head of equity and quantitative approach at BofA Securities. “Our bull market signposts take up again to show no real signs of a bottom, with just 30% being triggered vs. 80%+ triggered in prior bottoms. September has seasonally been a weak month and we expect more pain in the market.”
The market’s head fake makes a circumstances in which at least some investors might want to re-evaluate their portfolios. And any assessment of your own worth stands to benefit from a look at what other flourishing investors are doing.
Warren Buffett, for example, did plenty of bargain-hunting in the second quarter as the S&P 500 fell into bear-market territory. But Buffett was hardly alone. We just took a look at the top stock picks of billionaire investors during Q2. The rich get richer for a reason, and studying where they’re putting their money – mainly during times of market havoc – can be an edifying implementation for investors.
Karee Venema was long GOOGL as of this writing.