S&P 500, Dow and Nasdaq end slightly lower as investors look ahead to retail sales, Walmart earnings

Stocks traded mixed on Monday as investors monitored upbeat economic data out of China and awaited key retail sales and earnings results out from major U.S. companies later this week. 

The S&P 500, Dow and Nasdaq struggled for direction after opening decidedly higher. Boeing (BA) shares rose after the aircraft-maker’s head of commercial airplanes told Bloomberg he was “hopeful” that China would resume orders of the 737 Max soon following more than two years of grounding. The company also said it booked a number of orders following the 2021 Dubai Airshow, including for two 777 Freighters with Emirates.

Stronger-than-expected economic data out of China also helped lift traders’ sentiment at the start of the week. The world’s second-largest economy saw both retail sales and industrial production unexpectedly accelerate in October over last year, suggesting the economic impact from multiple COVID-19 waves and stay-in-place restrictions was beginning to ease. However, new-home prices in China fell by about 0.25{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} in October versus September, marking the biggest drop in more than six years as the country’s real estate market came under continued pressure. 

Investors this week are also set to receive new data from the Commerce Department on U.S. retail sales. The report is likely to show a 1.3{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} month-on-month jump in sales for October after a more sanguine 0.7{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} rise in September. And retail earnings results from major names including Walmart (WMT), Target (TGT), Home Depot (HD) and Lowe’s (LOW) will offer additional details on the state of the consumer. 

For U.S. stocks, last week marked a brief pause after a record-setting run-up. The S&P 500 posted a weekly decline for the first time in six weeks, but remained within 0.8{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} of its all-time intraday high as of Friday’s close. The Dow and Nasdaq were also not far off from their own record levels. 

A hotter-than-expected Consumer Price Index (CPI) last week tempered some of investors’ ebullience for equities, and suggested heightened inflationary pressures were stickier than previously expected. The CPI jumped by a greater-than-expected 6.2{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} in October compared to the prior year, marking the fastest annual rise since 1990. Meanwhile, the latest print on U.S. job openings came in higher-than-expected to a near-record high of more than 10.4 million, and a separate report showed consumer sentiment deteriorated early this month as Americans nervously eyed rising prices. 

The jump in inflation carries implications both for consumers’ personal finances and for monetary policy. 

“The surge in core inflation in October marks the start of a run of big gains, thanks to surging used auto prices, rebounding airline fares, and faster increases in housing costs,” Ian Shepherdson, chief economist for Pantheon Macroeconomics, wrote in a note Monday. “We think core inflation will peak at almost 7{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} in March, which will pose a serious challenge to the Fed’s benign medium-term view. Chair [Jerome] Powell will have to convince markets that the combination of rocketing payrolls and soaring inflation does not threaten the transitory story, to which he appears still to be committed.” 

Though the Federal Reserve has maintained current inflationary pressures will be temporary, sustained increases of these elevated magnitudes could prompt a quicker-than-previously-expected hike to interest rates, which would in turn impact a variety of asset classes.

“We remain of the view that the Fed will start to hike in September, but a June hike can’t be ruled out. If labor participation shows no sign of life by the March FOMC meeting, we expect the Fed to accelerate the taper and then hike in June. This would play badly across all asset markets,” Shepherdson added. “Treasury yields still have to rise, but rising real yields due to strong non-inflationary growth are vastly preferable to rising inflation expectations. High-multiple stocks and loss-making tech would be vulnerable even in the benign scenario, but cyclicals would outperform.” 

4:06 p.m. ET: S&P 500, Dow and Nasdaq end slightly lower as investors look ahead to retail sales, Walmart earnings

Here were the main moves in markets as of 4:06 p.m. ET:

  • S&P 500 (^GSPC): -0.05 (-0.00{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}) to 4,682.80

  • Dow (^DJI): -12.86 (-0.04{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}) to 36,087.45

  • Nasdaq (^IXIC): -7.11 (-0.04{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}) to 15,853.85

  • Crude (CL=F): +$0.10 (+0.12{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}) to $80.89 a barrel

  • Gold (GC=F): -$3.00 (-0.16{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}) to $1,865.50 per ounce

  • 10-year Treasury (^TNX): +4.1 bps to yield 1.6230{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}

3:02 p.m. ET: U.S. sees oil output in Permian Basin reaching record next month

U.S. crude oil output from the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico is set to jump to a record 4.95 million barrels per day in December, a new government forecast showed on Monday. This would bring production in the key U.S. shale patch well above its pre-pandemic average from March 2020.

Crude oil prices have so far been on a tear for the year-to-date, with a rapid surge in energy demand taking place as vaccinations occurred and mobility picked up. The government report Monday reaffirms that more supply may be taking place domestically in the near-term, helping to put a ceiling on prices after a 66{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} run-up in WTI crude so far this year.  

“Supply has to come back to the marketplace here,” Scott Bauer, CEO of Prosper Trading Academy, told Yahoo Finance Live earlier on Monday. “The good sign is for right now, is, oil rigs, the amount of rigs that get counted out there, that is rising. It actually rose by 6 last week. It’s the highest level that we’ve seen in about a year-and-a-half, so that means that maybe there will be some more drilling out there.”

9:52 a.m. ET: Empire Manufacturing index rebounds in November to top expectations

The regional Empire Manufacturing index for New York state jumped far more than expected in November after sliding in October, with a pick-up in employment at goods-producing firms helping buoy results.

The broadest business activity index for the region rose to 30.9 in November from 19.8 in October, exceeding estimates for 22.0, according to Bloomberg data. 

Beneath the headline index, employment grew at its fastest pace on record and the average workweek rose, according to the survey. However, in a sign of persistent supply-related disruptions and inflationary pressures, unfilled orders increased, and an index tracking prices paid held near a record high.

9:37 a.m. ET: Oatly shares slide by 20{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} after missing Q3 sales, cutting forecast

Oatly (OTLY) slumped by 20{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} Monday morning after posting third-quarter sales that sharply missed estimates and cutting its guidance for the year, as supply-chain and virus-related disruptions weighed on the oat milk-maker’s results. 

Revenue came in at $171.1 million in the third quarter, falling short of expectations for $185.7 million, based on Bloomberg data. The company now also sees revenue coming in at more than $635 million for the year, or down from its previous forecast for more than $690 million. 

“In EMEA, we are starting to build supply to meet consumer demand, but the pace at which we expected to increase revenue in new and existing retailers and to open new markets is slower than we anticipated as we navigate a dynamic COVID operating environment,” Oatly said in its earnings report. “We believe this is primarily a timing issue and in the first half of 2022, we expect to have an increased share of shelf space at retail given our strong velocities and current supply levels.” 

“In the Americas, we are pleased with the weekly production output improvements at our Ogden, Utah facility to-date in the fourth quarter, as we navigate a challenging supply chain environment,” the company added. “Finally, in Asia strict public health measures remain in effect due to an increase in cases of the COVID-19 Delta-variant. We are closely monitoring the situation and remain focused on the health and safety of our team.” 

9:30 a.m. ET: Stocks kick off the week in trading on a high note

Here’s where markets were trading after the opening bell on Monday:

  • S&P 500 (^GSPC): 4,692.44, +9.59 (+0.2{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996})

  • Dow (^DJI): 36,128.83, +28.52 (+0.08{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996})

  • Nasdaq (^IXIC): 15,891.14, +32.35 (+0.2{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996})

  • Crude (CL=F): -$1.04 (-1.29{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}) to $79.75 a barrel

  • Gold (GC=F): -$3.00 (-0.16{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}) to $1,865.50 per ounce

  • 10-year Treasury (^TNX): -0.9 bps to yield 1.582{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}

7:20 a.m. ET Monday: Stock futures point to a higher open

Here’s where markets were trading Monday morning: 

  • S&P 500 futures (ES=F): +10.5 points (+0.22{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}), to 4,688.75

  • Dow futures (YM=F): +102 points (+0.28{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}), to 36,115.00

  • Nasdaq futures (NQ=F): +40.75 points (+0.25{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}) to 16,233.50

  • Crude (CL=F): -$1.13 (-1.4{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}) to $79.66 a barrel

  • Gold (GC=F): -$2.30 (-0.12{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}) to $1,866.20 per ounce

  • 10-year Treasury (^TNX): -2.9 bps to yield 1.555{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., October 20, 2021.  REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., October 20, 2021. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Emily McCormick is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter

How to play the new electric economy

For a certain sector of the economy the past week has been electric.

Item 1: Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk polls his Twitter followers if he should sell his Tesla shares. They say yes. TSLA tanks on the news and Musk loses $50 billion. Then Musk sells 5.2 million shares or $5.8 billion of stock (as of Friday.) Tesla shares rally. Musk is still the richest man in the world.

Item 2: On Tuesday, electric truck maker Rivian goes public. Its stock soars 29{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} in the biggest IPO since the company formerly known as Facebook debuted in 2012. Rivian’s (RIVN) market value of $100 billion is bigger than Ford’s or GM’s.

Item 3: Also on Tuesday, Hertz, which had its IPO this week, confirms it is going to buy 100,000 Teslas, highlighted in an ad campaign, “Let’s Go!” featuring Tom Brady.

So the week might sound kind of bananas but in this quarter of the business universe, that’s actually pretty much SOP. It’s also the case that EVs, Elon and all things electric aren’t fringe anymore. They’re a massive, rapidly growing and increasingly core part of our world. This week’s New Yorker cover pretty much sums it up — Don Quixote looking to tilt a cluster of giant wind turbines. You don’t want to fight this.

Welcome then to the new Economy Electric.

What do I mean by that? Simply that there is a revolution happening right now that’s transforming all businesses, which use engines that burn fossil fuel, and forcing them over to electric power. It’s begun with cars, (though we’re still early days at least in the U.S.) EV sales have been skyrocketing over the last couple years,” says Ram Chandrasekaran, an EV analyst at Wood Mackenzie.

“In the first three quarters, we’ve already exceeded all of 2020 sales. It’s been an exceptionally strong year. 70{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} are coming from China and Europe. In China and Europe they’re firmly in the mainstream now. In the U.S., EV sales have been lagging compared to China and Europe around 6{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} or so,” he said. That will change.

And there’s everything else. Like motorcycles, boats, and some day planes and all forms of transportation. And then there’s generators, farm tractors and so on. It is a massive shift and it’s coming right now.

At this point — Rivian notwithstanding — it’s mostly, one man, one company and one stock: Elon Musk and Tesla. So much has been written about Musk and Tesla, I’ll just boil it down to this: Musk is a visionary. And Tesla is groundbreaking. Those two statements are unassailable and are immutable regardless of what Musk does or what happens to the company, car or stock going forward.

Certainly the market has more than validated this. Beyond the fact that Tesla has cumulatively sold more than 2 million cars, consider that Musk, the personification of the electric revolution, is worth some $294 billion, (way richer than Jeff Bezos — $200 billion), and up $124 billion this year. And of course Musk’s vision and strategy encompass much more than just Tesla, which is an element of an electric ecosystem he’s building including SolarCity and a distributed power grid.

Tesla’s trillion dollar market capitalization — the most valuable car company on the planet — is of course tough to justify. “I don’t want to make any serious comment about Tesla’s market cap — it being higher than the next seven or eight automakers combined is somewhat comical,” says Chandrasekaran. But he adds: “That’s how things are sometimes.” (It’s ironic that Tesla is on this kind of trajectory, while GE, a company rooted in the history of humanity’s taming of electricity, is now a shadow of its former self and being broken up.)

FILE - Tesla and SpaceX Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk speaks at the SATELLITE Conference and Exhibition in Washington on March 9, 2020. After making a promise on Twitter, the Tesla CEO has sold about 900,000 shares of the electric car maker's stock, netting over $1.1 billion that will go toward paying tax obligations for stock options. The sales, disclosed in two regulatory filings late Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2021, will cover tax obligations for stock options granted to Musk in September. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

FILE – Tesla and SpaceX Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk speaks at the SATELLITE Conference and Exhibition in Washington on March 9, 2020. After making a promise on Twitter, the Tesla CEO has sold about 900,000 shares of the electric car maker’s stock, netting over $1.1 billion that will go toward paying tax obligations for stock options. The sales, disclosed in two regulatory filings late Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2021, will cover tax obligations for stock options granted to Musk in September. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

But Tesla won’t be the only (dare I say) blue chip e-company forever. In fact one of the most serious parlor games on Wall Street right now is picking which other e-businesses will become dominant tomorrow. I want to go through some of these companies, but before that, some brief history about, yes, electricity.

The word “electric” comes from the Latin word electricus (“of amber” or “like amber,” also the elektron, the Greek word for “amber”) because one way we humans first became aware of electricity was when amber is rubbed it becomes magnetic.

Yes, Ben Franklin was an early pioneer. Some version of the kite and the key story may in fact be true. But no, Franklin didn’t “invent” electricity, (any more than Columbus “discovered” the new world.) Franklin did help harness it and maybe coined the phrase “electric battery.”

Other giants in the history of electricity include the likes of Thomas Edison, (who among many other things, was a co-founder of the aforementioned General Electric company.) His rivalry with George Westinghouse (AC versus DC) makes for an excellent movie, “The Current War,” starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Edison (I know, really?) There’s also of course the amazing Nikola Tesla, the namesake of two EV makers, which I wrote about here.

Then there’s British physicist Michael Faraday, who in 1850 was asked by William Gladstone, then the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the practical value of electricity was. “One day sir, you may tax it,” was Faraday’s retort.

A quick word about Industrial Revolutions. The first one, from 1760 to 1820, wasn’t about electricity at all and was in fact driven by localized steam engines, textile looms, the cotton gin and other simply powered machines. The Second Industrial Revolution however, from 1870 to 1914, is when electrification began which led to the creation of giant steel, chemical businesses and scores of other industries as well.

Of course electricity was used for cars early on and for rails and buses right through, but the powerful oil and gas industries promoted internal combustion engines at the expense of electrics from the early 20th century right up to, well now. (“Who Killed the Electric Car” is just a recent example of many such stories.)

But now that’s all changing. Why? Awareness of global warming for one. Erika Myers, a senior EV analyst at the World Resources Institute, thinks electrifying the economy is “our best chance” to address climate change. “I would not say EVs are a silver bullet,” she adds. “There needs to be a lot of strategies for transportation. Transport is 25{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} of global carbon dioxide emissions and fossil fuels have provided 95{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} of transportation fuels up to this point.”

“There’s not enough biofuels — you can’t do enough sequestration to get there,” says Saul Griffith, co-founder and chief scientist at Rewiring America, as well as the author of “Electrify: An Optimist’s Playbook for Our Clean Energy Future.” “80{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} or 90{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} of our energy system has to go electric. People say hydrogen but hydrogen starts with green electricity.”

Remember too that technology is driving down the cost of going electric.

Rivian Founder and CEO RJ Scaringe, left, unveils the first-ever electric adventure vehicle before its official reveal at the LA Auto Show at Griffith Observatory on Monday, Nov. 26, 2018 in Los Angeles. (Carlos Delgado/AP Images for Rivian)

Rivian Founder and CEO RJ Scaringe, left, unveils the first-ever electric adventure vehicle before its official reveal at the LA Auto Show at Griffith Observatory on Monday, Nov. 26, 2018 in Los Angeles. (Carlos Delgado/AP Images for Rivian)

Now back to the new electric companies. First, because the first wave of this third revolution has been cars, the category is usually referred to as EVs, (electric vehicles). But when you look up, say a list of best EV stocks, (like this one and this one), they invariably include battery makers and other suppliers as well.

There are a handful of EV ETFs, such as this one and this one that focuses on China plays, but most are still small and not really pure plays, i.e. they hold, say, diversified chipmakers that produce chips for EVs, but also have major other lines of business as well.

Here then are a few categories:

CARS AND TRUCKS

“Even Bloomberg New Energy Finance, which I’d hardly call radical, estimates in 2025, 2026 the electric vehicle will cost less in the showroom than an internal combustion engine,” says Saul Griffith. “When electric vehicles are more cost efficient in 2025 — it has flipped in China, in Norway — then it’s game over.”

There are EV makers selling right now, Tesla but also Lucid and Rivian. (BTW, Musk’s arch rival Jeff Bezos’s company Amazon is a large investor in Rivian.) In China you have NIO, (a very popular ticker here at Yahoo Finance), BYD (which Charlie Munger has invested in), Xpeng and Li. Then there are those that shall we say, are on more extended timelines like Fisker (FSR), Canoo (GOEV), Faraday Future (FFIE), Lordstown (RIDE) and Xos (XOS).

Obviously Rivian has been the talk of the town, which as my colleague Rick Newman notes, is a bit bizarro, “Electric-vehicle startup Rivian [with its giant market cap] has never sold a vehicle until this year. GM sells around 7 million vehicles per year; Ford, 4 million.”

True that Rick. But sometimes Mr. Market likes bizarro.

Another interesting point about Rivian to consider. DataTrek suggests that: “Rivian is the first legitimate competition Tesla has ever had in terms of institutional investor interest. That could pull capital out of TSLA, and therefore the S&P 500.”

Of course Elon couldn’t resist a poke Tweet at Rivian: 

Some are saying that now is the time to sell Tesla, as in “Own Tesla Stock? Be Like Elon Musk and Sell” in the Wall Street Journal this week. Who knows, maybe this time the skeptics will be right. Ark Invests’ Cathie Wood is still a believer though, saying the recent dip in Tesla is, “is nothing but a blip,” on the way to her price target of $3,000.

MOTORCYCLES

What makes people love motorcycles; the noise, the vibration, the smell is exactly what electric motorcycles obviate. And of course, any self-respecting Harley rider would scoff at all that. (My colleague Pras Subramanian, who covers EVs and all things electric, details all in this primer on e-bikes.) In spite of or perhaps because of all that, I think e-motorcycles are going to be a home run. Here you have newbies like Zero Motorcycles and NIU (e-scooters) as well as Volcon (VLCN), a manufacturer of electric motorcycles, and ATVs based near Austin, “an area that is poised to become the electric vehicle capital of the world.”

“With our current products, we found out 50{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} of people ordering directly from us hadn’t ridden a motorcycle before,” says CEO Jordan Davis. “Our bike doesn’t require a clutch; it doesn’t require a shifting of gears. You don’t need to be mechanically inclined — there’s no spark plug, no oil changes. Maintenance on the bike is very, very low.”

Wouldn’t you kill to be a fly on the wall at Harley-Davidson, which has an electric motorcycle called LiveWire, as they discuss all this?

BATTERY MAKERS

I get out of my depth pretty quickly here, so I’ll keep it short. This article is a great starting point. Bottom line: Most of the know-how and manufacturing is in China, which brings global politics into play as outlined in this New York Times guest essay by Steve LeVine, editor of The Electric, a publication focused on batteries and electric vehicles. His most recent book is “The Powerhouse: America, China and the Great Battery War.” (I’m telling you there is so much here.)

SPACS

Unlike the other categories here, SPACs are an investment vehicle through which many e-companies choose to go public. Kristi Marvin, CEO and founder of SPACInsider.com and her team put together some numbers. Simply put EVs are big on SPACs. Since the beginning of 2020, when SPACs began to boom, 23 EV SPACs have been announced or completed including SPACs for Lordstown, Fisker, Lucid and Nikola, with a total enterprise value today of $67 billion, the second biggest SPAC category after tech.

The Volta, an all electric helicopter takes off at the Paris Heliport in Issy-les-Moulineaux, France, October 19, 2016. REUTERS/Regis Duvignau

The Volta, an all electric helicopter takes off at the Paris Heliport in Issy-les-Moulineaux, France, October 19, 2016. REUTERS/Regis Duvignau

PLANES AND HELICOPTERS

Even more speculative here. “Right now batteries are just too heavy to be used successfully in commercial flights,” says Erika Myers. (There’s also the question of whether anyone would fly in an electric plane, nevermind helicopter?) Still this too could be coming. There are numerous commercial projects underway, including those by Airbus, Cessna and EasyJet, as well as startups like Wright Electric (“All short flights can be zero-emissions starting in 2026.”) And check out the Pipistrel Velis Electro, plane of the year. As for choppers, going back to 1917 apparently there was an electrically-powered tethered job. (Yikes.) Sikorsky’s been working on the Firefly for a decade. Here too there are myriad projects that include hybrids and unmanned models. (That sounds better to me!)

OTHER

Want an electric tractor? Check out here. And here. Electric RV? Coming here and here. Electric boat? Got a whole fleet of ‘em. Electric generators? Amazon has all kinds. And I could keep going here into any and all gas or diesel, etc. powered engines business again.

And that would include GM and Ford, right? It’s kind of funny to put these two legacy giants in an “other” category, but yes, they too could be major EV companies… soon. In fact they better be. There are signs. Ford stock has quadrupled (to $19) since its COVID-19 low in March 2020 based to a large degree over optimism of achieving this transformation. (GM has tripled to $60 over the same time period.) For Ford, developing an electric F-150 is critical. “To take something so central to Ford’s entire brand image and make an electric version and price it at a price point that’s extremely competitive, I think is a great achievement and is going to make a huge impact in the coming years,” says Ram Chandrasekaran.

And then there are the others. Ferrari is going electric, at $320K a pop. (What’s a Ferrari without the VROOM, I wonder…) And so is the aforementioned Hertz. Hertz CEO and former Ford CEO Mark Fields telling Yahoo Finance’s Brian Sozzi: “We are excited about the Tesla relationship. It’s all wrapped around our strategy to lead the adoption of electric vehicles.”

Everybody’s in on the act because, well, you want to be in on the act, but also because you do it or you die.

Sound like an investment slam dunk? Not exactly. I’m sure there are fortunes to be had for VCs and for ordinary people as well, (like buying TSLA two years ago when it was $70 — it’s now $1,045.) But please, please, please caveat emptor here. There’s all kinds of risk. For instance, hydrogen-powered vehicles for instance might make a quantum leap and win out over EVs.

I’m also reminded of something Warren Buffett said back in 1999: “There’s a lot of difference between making money and spotting a wonderful industry.” Here’s how Buffett expounded:

“You know, the two most important industries in the first half of this century in the United States — in the world, probably — were the auto industry and the airplane industry. Here you had these two discoveries, both in the first decade — essentially in the first decade — of the century. And if you’d foreseen, in 1905 or thereabouts, what the auto would do to the world, let alone this country, or what the airplane would do, you might have thought that it was a great way to get rich. But very, very few people got rich by being — by riding the back of that auto industry. And probably even fewer got rich by participating in the airline industry over that time. I mean, millions of people are flying around every day. But the number of people who’ve made money carrying them around is very limited. And the capital has been lost in that business, the bankruptcies. It’s been a terrible business. It’s been a marvelous industry. So you do not want to necessarily equate the prospects of growth for an industry with the prospects for growth in your own net worth by participating in it.”

Meaning in some cases it might be great to be a customer, i.e., to own an EV, but it might not be as great to an EV shareholder. To wit: Living in the electric economy might be more rewarding and enjoyable than investing in it.

Wikipedia has a “List of defunct automobile manufacturers of the United States” with some 1,500 entries. While some EV makers will succeed wildly, no doubt others will be added to this list.

This article was featured in a Saturday edition of the Morning Brief on November 13, 2021. Get the Morning Brief sent directly to your inbox every Monday to Friday by 6:30 a.m. ET. Subscribe

Andy Serwer is editor-in-chief of Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter: @serwer

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‘Stagflation is the message’ as prices spike to 30-year highs: Morning Brief

This post initially appeared in the Early morning Brief. Get the Morning Temporary despatched specifically to your inbox each Monday to Friday by 6:30 a.m. ET. Subscribe

Thursday, November 11, 2021

Overlook a ‘taper tantrum’ — ‘inflation indignation’ is right here

Following Thursday’s undesirable information that client selling prices in Oct ran hotter — at about 6{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}, the most popular they’ve been since the very first Bush administration, to be actual — than Wall Avenue anticipated, most of the emphasis has been on the reaction in stock markets, where by frothy costs pulled again from record highs.

Having said that, as the Morning Quick has pointed out at minimum a pair of situations in the final week, the far more fascinating response has taken place in federal government bond markets. Because the Federal Reserve declared its options to taper its large bond purchases, yields have been unusually quiet, exhibiting minor if any indicators of a tantrum.

Nevertheless the white scorching cost knowledge obviously upset the bond market’s equipoise. Costs spiked and spilled around into a tepid 30-calendar year bond auction, where bidders drove up govt borrowing costs on longer-dated paper by about 10 basis details. It reflected rising investor needs to be compensated at a premium in the encounter of spiraling costs across a range of sectors.

“I imagine this inflation is likely to be really persistent,” Satori Fund founder and portfolio manager Dan Niles advised Yahoo Finance Live. “I imagine we’re going to have a massive trouble, specially supplied the place valuations are. I assume several fee hikes subsequent year from the Fed.”

A industry after braced for a “taper tantrum” is now in the throes of what I’d like to phone inflation indignation. A convergence of solid pandemic-era demand from customers, skyrocketing electrical power fees and the worsening offer chain crisis is making the worst of all probable results.

“The world’s financial debt degrees, asset rate valuations and latest amount of extraordinarily lower fascination premiums, such as unfavorable types overseas, is just not positioned for a bout of substantial inflation that we are plainly in,” Peter Boockvar, CIO of Bleakley Advisory Group, explained.

With growth decelerating sharply from stratospheric pandemic-era concentrations, “stagflation is the bond market’s concept,” the veteran Wall Avenue watcher warned.

The wags at BlackRock consider the dreaded ‘s’ phrase isn’t warranted, writing in a investigation notice to customers that “while quite a few facile comparisons have been designed to other historical intervals of elevated inflation (such as the 1970s/early-1980s), and the expression ‘stagflation’ has been bandied about quite a little bit of late, we do not imagine the info warrants such problems.”

However, as we have observed in these electronic webpages a lot more than the moment, stagflation has been a widening worry above the last various months, with Google searches for the phrase owning spiked a short while ago — along with charges for just about every thing (especially food items, gas and hire: October’s selling price info confirmed tenant expenditures jumping by nearly fifty percent a share issue).

“It has not just an effect on the shopper, it’ll get started to have an impact on how asset rates mirror the modify in the inflationary ecosystem,” Vaughan Nelson Expense Management CEO Chris Wallis advised Yahoo Finance Reside.

“More importantly, we are starting to see it play out in the political realm as well,” he extra.

Which is at minimum partly why President Joe Biden, sensing the dual political peril of ships marooned in the Pacific and spiking charges, vowed to make inflation his administration’s top rated precedence.

He may well want to shift immediately, because the far more inflation shoots, the grumpier the common general public — already in a foul mood — is predicted to get. Voter unease with the pandemic-period overall economy was at minimum partly a motivating component driving the political earthquake of Virginia’s gubernatorial race, and the near-political death practical experience of New Jersey Democratic governor Phil Murphy, in what must have been a cakewalk reelection.

Moreover, political betting marketplaces, which have grow to be a more responsible barometer than public polling, are setting up to craze in the improper course for Biden and his bash. Immediately after the Virginia and NJ elections, US-Bookies.com displays Republican odds to gain the greater part handle of the two chambers of Congress are growing sharply.

“With a string of lousy approval scores for the Biden administration, the Republicans’ odds improved to the stage that bookies favored them to acquire command of Congress,” US-Bookies said. “And with Donald Trump being the favored to get in 2024, the odds are now predicting a clear sweep for the GOP.”

In truth. What a change a 12 months makes.

By Javier E. David, editor at Yahoo Finance. Adhere to him at @Teflongeek

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Stock futures advance, J&J shares gain after breakup announcement

Stock futures superior Friday early morning immediately after a blended session in the marketplaces, with both equally earnings and inflation facts remaining at the center of investor awareness.

Contracts on the S&P 500 edged increased, and the two the Dow and Nasdaq also headed toward greater opens. Shares of Dow element Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) acquired following the company stated it was preparing to crack up into two independent firms focused on purchaser well being items and pharmaceuticals, respectively, in a transfer echoing a very similar separation announcement by General Electric powered (GE) previously this 7 days. 

As of Thursday’s near, the S&P 500 was on observe to end the 7 days marginally decrease immediately after 5 straight months of gains. Nevertheless, it still held just a bit down below all-time highs. 

“We have bought a market that is just amazing. No issue what it truly is heading up, and that should not be a lot a shock presented how considerably dollars has been pushed into the technique,” Lenore Hawkins, Tematica Investigation chief macro strategist, informed Yahoo Finance Are living. “There’s just a whole lot of cash chasing not a whole large amount of choices.” 

That stated, a hotter-than-expected inflation print previously this 7 days was 1 important problem for investors, and bolstered that elevated value pressures ended up not as fleeting as several had to begin with envisioned during the recovery. Customer price ranges rose at their quickest clip in 31 yrs in October, or by a marked 6.2{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} versus the exact month very last year, to accelerate from September’s currently lofty 5.4{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} yr-on-yr rise.

The rise in price ranges carries implications equally for corporations— numerous of which have had to consider and go on rising charges to stop shoppers to preserve margins — and for the Federal Reserve. Market place pricing at this time implies the Federal Reserve will step in by mid-next yr to raise interest charges to try and mood the broadening inflationary traits. 

Nevertheless, many economists have reaffirmed that the inflationary pressures will ultimately relieve, albeit whilst probably settling at a better amount than had been present before the pandemic. 

“Inflation need to average. We’re talking about settling at 2{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}, 2.5{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} over the system of the following 12 months,” Gabriela Santos, JPMorgan Asset Management international industry strategist, advised Yahoo Finance Reside. “So we are nonetheless speaking about genuine wage gains, and that’s exceptionally supportive absolutely of people’s livelihoods, but also of intake and hence the economy general.”

“We do count on a big re-acceleration in expansion setting up this quarter and during following yr, [and] 5{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} common expansion just about the up coming a few quarters,” she additional. “So we would characterize this not as stagflation, but as reflation. And that change is, reflation is actually really good for earnings advancement and rather good for the inventory sector, particularly cyclical sectors.” 

7:50 a.m. ET: Inventory futures issue to a higher open

This is wherever markets ended up investing Friday early morning: 

  • S&P 500 futures (ES=F): +9.25 details (+.2{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}), to 4,652.25

  • Dow futures (YM=F): +94 points (+.26{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}), to 35,923.00

  • Nasdaq futures (NQ=F): +39.00 points (+.24{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}) to 16,061.75

  • Crude (CL=F): -$1,53 (-1.88{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}) to $80.06 a barrel

  • Gold (GC=F): -$8.50 (-.46{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}) to $1,855.40 for every ounce

  • 10-12 months Treasury (^TNX): +1.4 bps to produce 1.572{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}

6:11 p.m. ET Thursday: Inventory futures advance

This is exactly where marketplaces ended up buying and selling Thursday evening:

  • S&P 500 futures (ES=F): +4.5 points (+.1{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}), to 4,647.50

  • Dow futures (YM=F): +41 factors (+.11{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}), to 35,870.00

  • Nasdaq futures (NQ=F): +19.5 points (+.12{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}) to 16,042.25

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., October 27, 2021.  REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Traders work on the flooring of the New York Inventory Trade (NYSE) in New York Town, U.S., Oct 27, 2021. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Emily McCormick is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Stick to her on Twitter

Stock futures drift after tech-led drop, Disney shares dip after earnings miss

Inventory futures attained Thursday morning to get well some losses just after a technological know-how-led drop across the important fairness indexes, with traders mulling symptoms that elevated inflation is continue to reverberating across the recovering financial system. 

The S&P 500 was on observe to rise immediately after back-to-back sessions of losses. The Nasdaq outperformed, with some of Wednesday’s greatest know-how laggards publishing a rebound. 

With no noteworthy financial knowledge owing out on Thursday thanks to the Veterans Working day getaway, traders have been remaining to go on responding to the most current batch of mixed economic facts. And in the meantime, a couple of closely viewed firms skipped quarterly earnings estimates, nevertheless most S&P 500 companies have topped expectations throughout third-quarter earnings period to date. 

Following market place close on Wednesday, Dow-ingredient Disney (DIS) described disappointing product sales and income as Disney+ subscriber growth slowed a lot more than envisioned. Over and above Meat (BYND) also presented a weak existing-quarter profits forecast, pointing to ongoing sluggishness in the plant-primarily based meat option-maker’s profits traits. Affirm (AFRM), nonetheless, saw shares soar in the premarket session, with the buy-now-shell out-afterwards economical engineering system topping quarterly profits anticipations and unveiling an expanded payments partnership with Amazon. 

Elsewhere, nonetheless, elevated desire for electrical-vehicle stocks and for shares of recently public businesses confirmed number of indicators of slowing down right after Rivian Automotive’s (RIVN) community debut. The Amazon-backed EV-maker’s stock closed bigger by 29{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} from its IPO price tag of $78 for each share on its to start with working day buying and selling on the Nasdaq. 

A higher-than-predicted soar in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index was a specific supply of concern for traders on Wednesday, suggesting elevated rate pressures had been continue to existing throughout lots of types. The print also overshadowed some other upbeat financial information on the labor market’s recovery, as preliminary unemployment promises dipped to get to a fresh pandemic-period low previous 7 days. 

The broadest evaluate of customer rate improvements rose by a staggering 6.2{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} in Oct when compared to the prior 12 months, symbolizing the most significant yearly increase in 31 several years. 

“This is definitely telling us, I believe, that cost pressures are more persistent. They are broader. They are not just narrowly targeted on those people categories, regardless of whether it is really autos and the source-constrained goods. And it is really heading to previous lengthier than envisioned,” Matthew Luzzetti, Deutsche Financial institution main U.S. economist, told Yahoo Finance Reside. 

Importantly, stickiness in inflation also implies that the Federal Reserve will have to have to phase in quicker than formerly anticipated to increase fascination fees in order to support provide growing costs in examine. Markets are pricing in an preliminary hike to convey costs up from their existing in close proximity to-zero levels by mid-2022 — but a lot more prints demonstrating elevated inflation could pull those expectations ahead, Luzzetti included. And by now, consumers’ outlooks on inflation have improved significantly, with the New York Federal Reserve reporting this week that consumers’ brief-expression inflation anticipations jumped to a file significant of 5.7{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}. 

“We do think that the Fed is heading to have to increase charges next year. They have signaled that they are heading to taper through the center of the 12 months, and that’s our baseline at this level,” Luzzetti explained. “But if you continue to see selling price pressures like this over the coming months and far more persistent, it may perhaps result in them to have to act earlier than anticipated.”

7:47 a.m. ET Thursday: Inventory futures get better some losses

Here is where markets ended up investing ahead of the opening bell:

  • S&P 500 futures (ES=F): +16.25 details (+.35{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}), to 4,658.25

  • Dow futures (YM=F): +44 points (+.12{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}), to 35,036.00

  • Nasdaq futures (NQ=F): +98.25 details (+.61{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}) to 16,078.75

  • Crude (CL=F): -$.59 (-.73{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}) to $80.75 a barrel

  • Gold (GC=F): +$12.30 (+.67{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}) to $1,860.60 for each ounce

  • 10-calendar year Treasury (^TNX): +12.1 bps to produce 1.5700{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}

6:11 p.m. ET Wednesday: Stock futures drift reduce in advance of inflation information

Here is wherever markets were investing Wednesday evening:

  • S&P 500 futures (ES=F): +3 details (+.06{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}), to 4,645.00

  • Dow futures (YM=F): -8 details (-.02{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}), to 35,984.00

  • Nasdaq futures (NQ=F): +12.5 factors (+.08{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}) to 15,993.00

A trader works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., November 8, 2021.  REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

A trader will work on the ground of the New York Inventory Exchange (NYSE) in New York Town, U.S., November 8, 2021. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Emily McCormick is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Comply with her on Twitter

Stocks jump to new records at the open; Tesla weighed by Musk pledge

Stocks on Monday extended a record-setting streak of gains on Wall Street, opening at new highs as traders looked ahead to a slew of new inflation data and earnings results in the coming days.

At the opening bell, the Dow, S&P 500 Index and Nasdaq all notched fresh highs, carried by last week’s momentum when all three major indexes jumped to their best levels ever. Optimism over a batch of strong corporate profit reports, a better-than-anticipated October jobs report and a Federal Reserve decision that matched investors’ expectations are providing impetus to risk-sensitive assets. 

Meanwhile, Bitcoin prices led a broad crypto rally, with the leading digital coin jumping within view of a record high. However, Tesla (TSLA) dropped by more than 6{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} on the day, after CEO Elon Musk confounded investors by vowing to sell 10{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} of his holdings based on the outcome of a Twitter poll, which kept a lid on tech stocks.

This week, companies including Disney (DIS), PayPal (PYPL) and Coinbase (COIN) are set to deliver quarterly earnings results, with traders hoping that these and other companies’ results will extend a streak of solid earnings growth heading into the holiday season. So far, 89{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} of S&P 500 companies have reported third-quarter results, and 81{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} of these exceeded Wall Street’s estimates for earnings per share, according to FactSet data. The expected year-on-year earnings growth rate has crept higher to 39.1{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}, which would mark the third-fastest pace for earnings growth in the index since 2010. 

On the economic data front, inflation reports will be especially closely monitored. Wednesday’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) from the Bureau of Labor Statistics is expected to show another acceleration in consumer prices on both a monthly and annual basis for last month, as ongoing supply chain challenges and labor shortages across the recovering economy contribute to rising prices. Estimates as of Monday showed that consensus economists expect to see the CPI rise by 5.9{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} in October compared to last year, accelerating from September’s 5.4{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} annual rate to reach the fastest rise since 1990. 

“We continue to expect that a normalization of demand and supply constraints over time will take pressure off inflation statistics,” Rubeela Farooqi, chief economist for High Frequency Economics, wrote in a note on Monday. “The exact timing is uncertain, given we cannot predict when supply chains will adjust.”

“However, our best guess is that prices will start moderating by the middle of next year — possibly sooner if goods that are stuck off ports reach their destinations in the early part of the year, which will result in an excess supply of goods after the holiday,” she added.  

Though the Federal Reserve has suggested that elevated inflation related to supply constraints will ultimately subside, market participants are still awaiting signs of easing. Data from Oxford Economics showed last week that supply chain pressures worsened in October after easing somewhat in September, and the number of cargo ships waiting to unload at key ports in California reached an all-time high. 

And the inflation report will come following last week’s average hourly wage data in the Labor Department’s October jobs report, which showed that average earnings jumped by a marked 4.9{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} in October over last year. These rising labor and compensation costs, as well as a slew of other supply-related challenges, have also been cited by a host of companies in their latest earnings results.

“The so-called Great Resignation, with baby boom generation retirees and others reassessing their connection to the labor force, is tightening up the labor market faster than the economic models predicted and this means demand pressures and shortages will persist and that inflation will gain a permanent foothold if Federal Reserve policy makers are not careful,” Chris Rupkey, chief economist for FWDBonds, wrote in a note on Friday. 

“They took a baby step this week in starting to taper, but they are still adding money to the economy through their asset purchases through next June, and they cannot start putting the brakes on this economy until they actually lift interest rates,” he added. 

4:05 p.m. ET: S&P 500 ekes out 8th straight day of gains; Dow adds 104 points, or 0.3{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} to reach record

Here were the main moves in markets as of 4:05 p.m. ET:

  • S&P 500 (^GSPC): +4.17 (+0.09{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}) to 4,701.70

  • Dow (^DJI): +104.27 (+0.29{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}) to 36,432.22

  • Nasdaq (^IXIC): +10.77 (+0.07{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}) to 15,982.36

  • Crude (CL=F): +$1.01 (+1.24{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}) to $82.28 a barrel

  • Gold (GC=F): +$9.20 (+0.51{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}) to $1,826.00 per ounce

  • 10-year Treasury (^TNX): +4.4 bps to yield 1.4970{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}

12:01 p.m. ET: Ford shares exceed $20 per share for the first time in two decades

Ford (F) crossed the $20 per-share threshold for the first time since mid-2001, with optimism over the company’s renewed focus on electric vehicles and a pick-up in demand for autos more broadly during the recovery helping fuel the stock. 

Shares have risen more than 120{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} for the year-to-date, far exceeding the S&P 500’s about 25{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} rise over that period. 

Earlier Monday, Bloomberg reported that Ford was set to begin selling green bonds used to help advance clean energy projects and battery-electric vehicle development. And earlier this fall, Ford pledged to spend $11.4 billion to help build out a suite of electric zero-emission vehicles over the next several years. 

11:10 a.m. ET: Tesla shares cut losses after Musk asks Twitter whether he should sell 10{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} of stake

Tesla (TSLA) shares pared steep losses on Monday as investors digested the latest Twitter commentary from CEO Elon Musk, who over the weekend asked his over 62 million followers whether he should sell 10{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} of his stake in Tesla in a Twitter poll. At its lows of the session, the stock was down more than 7{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}. 

The majority of of 3.5 million respondents on the poll said they supported such a sale, which would be worth about $21 billion based on the nearly 171 million Tesla shares that Musk currently holds. 

Despite the poll, a number of analysts suggested that a share sale by Musk was likely already on the way anyway, given the executive has a tax bill worth billions set for the coming months ahead of the expiration of 23 million of his stock options in August of next year. 

“With a tax bill that we calculate at north of $10 billion, selling stock over the coming months is not a surprise, although holding a Twitter poll to sell 10{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} of his stock is another bizarre soap opera that can only happen to one company and one CEO in the world, Musk,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives wrote in a note on Monday. “We would rather Musk rip the band-aid off now and sell this portion of stock rather than it lingering over the next year and feeding into any non-fundamental bear thesis on the story.”

11:07 a.m. ET: Alphabet sets record high, reaching $2 trillion market cap

Google’s parent company Alphabet (GOOGL) rallied Monday morning, bringing the tech juggernaut’s market capitalization above the $2 trillion mark. Shares briefly topped $3,000 apiece. 

The stock has risen for five straight sessions, with traders continuing the cheer the company’s better-than-expected quarterly results as the company pointed to a pick-up in digital advertising spending and growth in Google Cloud. Alphabet, which has benefited from a return of travel advertisers, has also outperformed the other Big Tech stocks including Apple, Amazon, Meta and Netflix so far this year. Shares have jumped more than 71{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996} so far in 2021. 

9:30 a.m ET: Stocks set new records at the open

Here were the main moves in markets as of 9:30 a.m. ET:

  • S&P 500 (^GSPC): 4,712.81,+15.28 (+0.33{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996})

  • Dow (^DJI): 36,547.88, +219.93 (+0.61{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996})

  • Nasdaq (^IXIC): 16,007.14, +35.55 (+0.22{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996})

  • Crude (CL=F): $81.71 per barrel, +$0.44(+0.54{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996})

  • Gold (GC=F): $1,827.10, +$10.30 (+0.57{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996})

  • 10-year Treasury (^TNX): +11 bps to yield 1.4600{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}

7:30 a.m. ET Monday: Stock futures trade mixed

Here’s where markets were trading Monday morning:

  • S&P 500 futures (ES=F): +3.5 points (+0.07{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}), to 4,693.75

  • Dow futures (YM=F): +74 points (+0.2{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}), to 36,289.00

  • Nasdaq futures (NQ=F): -1.5 points (-0.01{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}) to 16,350.25

  • Crude (CL=F): $82.36 per barrel, +$1.09 (+1.34{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996})

  • Gold (GC=F): $1,817.20 per ounce, +$0.40 (+0.02{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996})

  • 10-year Treasury (^TNX): +2.8 bps to yield 1.481{21df340e03e388cc75c411746d1a214f72c176b221768b7ada42b4d751988996}

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., October 20, 2021.  REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., October 20, 2021. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Emily McCormick is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter