Day Traders Diary

5/7/20

The major averages close in the green as the Nasdaq Composite rose for a fourth straight day closing positive for the year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 211 points, or 0.9%, at 23,875. The S&P 500 gained 1.2% to close at 2,881. The tech-heavy index closed 1.4% higher at 8,979 as Apple shares gained 1%. The Nasdaq is now up nearly 0.1% for the year. The Dow and S&P 500 are still down more than 10% for 2020.

Thursday marked the first time one of the major averages was up year to date since the coronavirus pandemic led to the closure of nonessential businesses, sparking massive layoffs and a historic market sell-off.

The day started with investors receiving economic data that the market construed as relatively good: weekly initial jobless claims totaled 3.169 million, but it was encouraging that it reflected another 677,000 decline from the prior week. Likewise, China's imports fell more than expected in April, but an increase in exports was a nice surprise.

In Corporate news PayPal rose 14%, T-Mobile US rose 10.1%, Lyft rose 21% and Twilio jumped 39% following earnings.  

Drug stock, Moderna rose 8% after announcing it received FDA approval to proceed to a Phase 2 trial for its COVID-19 vaccine candidate. Bristol Myers jumped 2% following better than expected earnings and inline guidance for the full year, but the stock closed unchanged.

U.S. Treasuries padded gains throughout the session and WTI crude futures ($23.65/bbl, -0.30, -1.3%) gave up an intraday gain. The advance in Treasuries drove the 2-yr yield down six basis points to 0.11% and the 10-yr yield down eight basis points to 0.63%. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.2% to 99.88.