Shares on Wall Street advanced on Thur, as government bond yields and commodity prices fell. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 194.23 pts, or 0.64%, to close at 30,677.36. The S&P 500 Index rose 0.95%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite jumped 1.62%. The small-cap Russell 2000 gained 1.27%.
Megacap tech stocks mostly rose on Thur, including Apple (AAPL US, +2.16%), Microsoft (MSFT US, +2.26%) Amazon (AMZN US, +3.2%), Alphabet (GOOGL US, +0.68%) and Meta Platforms (META US, +1.86%). Nvidia (NVDA US, - 0.83%) was the exception.
Energy was the worst-performing sector in the S&P 500. Shares of Schlumberger (SLB US, -6.77%), Valero Energy (VLO US, -7.6%) and Phillips 66 (PSX US, -6.76%) were pummelled.
The front-month Brent and WTI futures closed down $1.69 at US$110.05/bbl and $1.92 at US$104.27/bbl respectively. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note slipped 6.91 basis points (bps) to 3.0870%, while the yield on the 2-year Treasuries fell 4.14 bps to 3.0145%.
Eurozone bond yields tumbled even more, after data showed business activity in the bloc had slowed much more than expected. Germany’s 10-year bond yield fell nearly 15 bps to 1.474%, its lowest in 1-1/2 weeks.
European shares hit more than one-year lows. The pan-European Stoxx 600 index dropped 0.8% on Thur. The Stoxx 600 is down 19% since hitting a record closing high on Jan 5. The UK FTSE lost 0.97%. UK-listed miners fell copper tumbled to its lowest level for more than a year over recession fears and China’s efforts to curb Covid-19 cases. Glencore (GLEN LN, -1.46%), Antofagasta (ANTO LN, -5.83%) and Rio Tinto (RIO LN, -2.17%) were hammered.
The ICE dollar index (DXY), which measures the strength of the greenback against a basket of currencies, rose 0.22% to 104.431.
The most actively traded US gold futures (Aug) contracts settled down $8.60, or 0.5%, at US$1,829.80/oz. July silver, which is the most actively traded silver futures, fell 37.9 cents, or 1.8%, to end at US$21.042/oz.