Day Traders Diary

5/3/24

The major averages ended the week on an up note thanks to Apple's earnings and softer-than-expected April jobs report that boosted hopes that the Federal Reserve could cut interest rates this year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up 450 points or 1.2%. The S&P 500 rose 63 points or 1.2% while the Nasdaq Composite rose 315 points or 1.9%.  

The initial rally in the averages was due to Apple's earnings last night. Apple rose 10% lifting all three major averages after a beat, a dividend hike and a huge share buyback.

The rally continued following a drop in rates when the nonfarm payrolls report showed 175,000 job gains in April, below the 240,000 jobs expected by economists surveyed by Dow Jones. The unemployment rate edged up to 3.9%, versus 3.8% in the prior month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Wage figures also came in less than expected.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury was off by nearly 10 basis points to 4.473%. The 2-year Treasury yield was last 12.4 basis points lower to 4.751%.

Besides Apple's earnings, there were plenty of other earnings reports including Amgen, Block, Expedia, Bookings Holdings, Coinbase, Cloudflare, Fortinet and DraftKings.

Amgen jumped 11% on positive earnings and clinical drug trial for their wight loss drug. Eli Lilly was lower on this news.

Booking Holdings and Fluent were higher on earnings as well while Square, Fortinet, Expedia, Coinbase, DraftKings and Cloudflare were lower on earnings.

Coinbase is lower even as Bitcoin rebounded 5% after making a two month low earlier in the week.

All the averages capped off a winning week. The Dow and Nasdaq rose 1.18% and 1.26%, respectively, while the S&P added 0.55%.