Day Traders Diary

8/25/20

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq make new all-time highs while the Dow Jones Industrial Average pulls back after announcing a major shakeup as Apple snapped a five-session winning streak.

The 30-stock Dow dropped 60 points snapping a three-day winning streak as Dow Jones announced that Salesforce.com, Amgen and Honeywell will replace Exxon Mobil, Pfizer and Raytheon Technologies within the average. The changes are driven by Apple's coming stock split, which will reduce the technology weighting in the price-weighted average.

Salesforce, Amgen and Honeywell gained while Exxon Mobil, Pfizer and Raytheon declined. Exxon has been a part of the average for nearly 100 years.

Tuesday's gains put the S&P 500 and Nasdaq up 57% and 72%, respectively, since hitting intraday lows on March 23. Recent gains have been driven in part by a decline in daily U.S. coronavirus cases.

The number of newly confirmed coronavirus infections in the U.S. has dropped. Data compiled by Johns Hopkins University showed new cases fell to around 38,000 and have been below 50,000 since mid-August.

U.S. Treasuries finished the session mostly lower, with longer-dated maturities seeing a bulk of the losses. The 2-yr yield increased one basis point to 0.16%, and the 10-yr yield increased four basis points to 0.68%. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.3% to 93.01. WTI crude futures rose 1.7%, or $0.72, to $43.33/bbl.