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Tech-led sell-off intensifies with Nasdaq dropping 2%, Dow falls greater than 300 factors

Tech-led sell-off intensifies with Nasdaq dropping 2%, Dow falls more than 300 points

US stocks fell on Wednesday, causing technology stocks to move lower as key inflation data showed higher than expected price pressures.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 330 points on Tuesday after its worst day since February. The S&P 500 lost 1.3% while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was down 2%.

Selling strengthened after the S&P 500 fell below Tuesday’s lows. A level trader was watching this closely due to the intraday rebound a day ago. As soon as the S&P fell below that low about an hour after it started trading, the benchmark fell even further.

Inflation accelerated last month, at its fastest level since 2008, with the consumer price index up 4.2% yoy, compared with the Dow Jones estimate for a 3.6% increase. The monthly profit was 0.8% versus the expected 0.2%.

Excluding volatile food and energy prices, the core CPI rose 3% over the same period in 2020 and 0.9% monthly. The respective estimates were 2.3% and 0.3%.

“The markets are at all their highs, and much of the reopened trading has already been priced in. So there is no question that the oversized inflation rate could bring us back down a little,” said Mike Loewengart, managing director of investment strategy at E -Trade.

“Remember that the Fed has made it clear that inflation hikes will not necessarily deviate from its simple monetary policy, and that further jumps like this could be temporary. So is this a trend? That remains to be seen,” Loewengart said.

Tech stocks that have been under pressure this week and month saw another decline on Wednesday. Alphabet, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple’s shares all fell more than 2%, while chipmakers Nvidia and AMD’s shares were also lower. Tesla slipped 3%.

The strength of bank stocks and energy stocks, which could do well in an inflationary environment, helped support the broader market. JPMorgan was up 1% while Occidental Petroleum was up 6.5%. Chevron was also trading 2% higher.

The tech sector saw a major reversal during the previous session, with the Nasdaq Composite taking a loss north of 2% and ending the day flat. However, the blue chip Dow lost more than 450 points. The S&P 500 was down 0.9% but avoided its second consecutive 1% loss.

The Technology Select Sector SPDR is down nearly 2% this week and 5% this month as investors re-evaluate the group’s high valuations amid rising inflation.

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Health

Public demand for AstraZeneca vaccine falls after blood clot scares

Ireland, Netherlands suspend AstraZeneca vaccine amid blood clot fears

A medical worker fills a syringe with AstraZeneca vaccine at Santa Caterina da Siena – Amendola secondary school in Salerno on March 13, 2021 in Salerno, Italy.

Francesco Pecoraro | Getty Images News | Getty Images

LONDON – Public preference for the coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford has fallen since reports surfaced suggesting it may be linked to some cases of unusual blood clotting events.

An April study of nearly 5,000 adults in the UK, with Covid vaccine uptake high and the vaccination program well established, found that public preference for the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine has declined since March and there is a belief that that he caused blood clots to have increased.

The UK academic study found that 17% of the public now say they would prefer the AstraZeneca vaccine if given a choice – up from 24% towards the end of March.

And 23% of people now believe the AstraZeneca vaccine causes blood clots – up from 13% in March. However, the public are still the most likely to say that this claim is false (39%) or that they don’t know if it is true (38%).

The study, conducted April 1–16 by the University of Bristol, King’s College London, and the NIHR Health Protection Unit for Emergency Preparedness and Relief, found a “big difference” in beliefs before and after MHRA ( the UK Medicines Agency) announced on April 7th that there is a possible link between the vaccine and extremely rare blood clots.

The study found that 17% of respondents in the first week of this month thought this claim was true, compared with 31% who were asked about it.

Why autumn

Since the first clinical data was published, the vaccine has shown an average effectiveness rate of 70% (subsequent studies in the US have shown an effectiveness rate of 79%, and other studies have shown that the effectiveness rate increases with a larger gap between the first and second doses ) The fate of the AstraZeneca vaccine is mixed to say the least.

Continue reading: Dates, Doubts, and Disputes: A Timeline for AstraZeneca’s Covid Vaccine Problems

One of the recent hurdles for the AstraZeneca vaccine was a small number of reports of unusual, sometimes fatal, blood coagulation events that occurred in post-vaccinating people in Europe in February, causing several countries to suspend use of the vaccine.

The UK and EU drug regulators (the UK Medicines and Health Products Regulatory Authority and the European Medicines Agency) examined the reports and said that while there is a possible link between the vaccine and low incidence of blood clotting, the benefits of the vaccine are significant outweighing them Risks.

The Anglo-Swedish vaccine maker, British government and experts largely defended the vaccine, saying it protected millions of people by reducing Covid cases, hospitalizations and deaths.

In addition, experts tried to correlate the risk, saying the number of reported rare blood clotting cases with low platelets was about one case in 250,000 people vaccinated and one death in one million.

Britain is fortunate that it has traditionally received high levels of public support for vaccination. The vaccine preference survey found that, despite the growing belief that it was associated with blood clots, the AstraZeneca vaccine did not affect general confidence in vaccines in general. 81% say vaccines are safe, compared to 73% who said so in late 2020.

Similarly, views on how well vaccines work have changed: 86% say they are effective, up from 79% in November and December 2020.

However, surveys have shown that the public perception of the AstraZeneca vaccine has deteriorated in mainland Europe, and there is scattered evidence that people in the EU are using the AstraZeneca vaccine (referred to as the “Aldi” vaccine after the low-cost food chain will) because in favor of the coronavirus vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech, which also prevails when EU vaccinations are introduced.

Continue reading: “The damage is done”: Europe’s caution against the AstraZeneca vaccine could have far-reaching consequences

Moderna’s shot and Johnson & Johnson’s shot have also been approved for use in the EU and the UK, but have been less widely used, EU vaccination data show.

Hesitation to vaccinate can apparently work both ways. A British doctor reported in the Evening Standard newspaper in January that some of his patients had turned down the opportunity to receive the Pfizer vaccine, saying they would “wait for the English one.”

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Business

Germany’s Merkel and CDU/CSU recognition falls in the course of the pandemic

Germany's Merkel and CDU/CSU popularity falls during the pandemic

Chancellor Angela Merkel takes part in a press conference after discussing the vaccination strategy in the Federal Chancellery with the heads of government by video on March 23, 2021 in Berlin.

Pool | Getty Images News | Getty Images

LONDON – A third wave of the coronavirus pandemic has created more political problems for Chancellor Angela Merkel and her ruling CDU party as the country nears the federal elections later this year.

Germany was initially widely lauded for its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, skillfully handling the country’s first outbreak, isolating cases and tracking contacts, while its modern and well-equipped hospitals helped keep the death toll low.

A year later, and the situation is very different: Europe’s largest economy is facing a third wave of infections, a rising death toll and allegations of mismanagement of the health crisis directed against the government.

On Wednesday, Merkel made waves by reversing a plan to lock the country down during the Easter vacation, saying she made a “mistake”. It did so after criticism from health experts and business leaders who said the proposal could do more harm than good.

The concession comes when experts think about how Germany is dealing with the pandemic and investigate how the ruling parties of the Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union could be affected if the Germans cast their votes in a federal election in September.

Merkel’s CDU party has already done poorly in the recent state elections, suggesting that it could be punished again later in the year by voters who are wrong against the center-left Social Democrats, and especially the environmentalist Greens, their support has increased significantly.

“Mismanagement hurts,” commented Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg Bank, in a note on Thursday.

“Last March, a clever reaction to the pandemic almost brought Chancellor Angela Merkel and her CDU / CSU into the stratosphere.” But he added that while Germany weathered the first wave of the pandemic better than most other industrialized countries, “it is no longer the case”.

“Confusing political changes and slow vaccination progress have now undermined public confidence in the ability of the CDU / CSU, which led the government to steer Germany through the crisis for much of its post-war history, including the past 15 years,” noted he

Schmieding noted that a kickback scandal involving CDU-CSU MPs had met with public approval. Surveys showed that support for the CDU-CSU had returned to pre-pandemic levels. “Merkel’s U-turn from an ‘Easter shutdown’ could exacerbate the suffering, ” he added.

What’s wrong

A decline in the popularity of the CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the CSU, is due to the fact that in September, when Merkel’s last term of office comes to an end, the question of who will head the German government remains open. The CDU-CSU has not yet said which candidate it will propose for election.

Merkel’s U-turn on Wednesday was unusual, as she was considered a firm hand in times of crisis for a long time. The move showed that the federal government is also under pressure to have to make difficult decisions in a fast-moving pandemic situation.

After the U-turn on Wednesday, Merkel rejected demands by the opposition to ask parliament for a vote of confidence in her government.

According to the Johns Hopkins University, Germany has now recorded more than 2.7 million cases and 75,498 deaths. This is far less than the UK. Compared to 4.3 million cases in the UK and over 126,621 deaths.

The country recently started easing lockdown measures, allowing schools to reopen in February and some unneeded stores to resume customers earlier this month. As in other European countries, the company relied on coronavirus vaccines to slowly reopen its largest economy in Europe.

Germany is not the only one who has to adjust its plans. Italy will impose a national lockdown for the second consecutive year during Easter, while Paris and other parts of France are again partially locked.

Public tolerance of re-locks could be higher if the introduction of vaccines in the EU is planned. Overall, however, vaccination programs in the entire block show a changeable vaccination rate.

EU leaders practically met on Thursday to discuss whether to block EU vaccine exports as other countries like the UK push their programs forward. On the previous Thursday, Merkel had defended the EU’s strategy of not purchasing vaccines individually, but as a block.

“Now that we see that even small differences in the distribution of vaccines are causing big debates, I don’t want to imagine if some Member States had vaccines and others didn’t. That would shake the internal market to the core,” she told German lawmakers Reuters reported on the EU summit.

She also suggested that vaccination problems in the area had more to do with lower production capacity than under-ordering shots.

“British factories don’t produce for the UK and the US doesn’t export, so we rely on what we can make in Europe,” she said. “We have to assume that the virus with its mutations may well occupy us for a long time, so that the question extends well beyond this year,” she added.

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Health

Fosun Pharma falls as Hong Kong suspends BioNTech Covid vaccinations

Fosun Pharma falls as Hong Kong suspends BioNTech Covid vaccinations

Vaccination program branding on the clothing of a staff member outside a community vaccination center administering the BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine imported by Fosun Pharma on Wednesday March 17, 2021 in Hong Kong, China.

Chan Long Hei | Bloomberg via Getty Images

Shares in China’s Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group fell after Hong Kong and Macau announced on Wednesday that they would suspend vaccinations for BioNTech Covid.

Fosun Pharma, BioNTech’s partner in the development and distribution of the Comirnaty Covid-19 vaccine in Greater China, has informed the cities of a packaging error in batch 210102 of the vaccine.

Hong Kong and Macau said they would suspend vaccinations made in Germany as a precaution.

The cities said BioNTech and Fosun Pharma are investigating the cause of the vial cap failure, adding that there is currently no reason to doubt the vaccine’s safety.

Macau says all of its messenger RNA or mRNA vaccines belong to the affected batch. Hong Kong said it would also temporarily suspend vaccinations from batch 210104 until the investigation is completed.

Hong Kong-listed Fosun Pharma shares fell 4.83% in the city on Wednesday afternoon.

Hong Kong approved the BioNTech emergency vaccine in January, while Macau gave the vaccine a special import permit in late February. Both areas received their first shots in late February.

BioNTech’s mRNA-based vaccine has a proven efficacy of 95% in adults, according to data from its global Phase 3 clinical trial. Real-world data has shown that Pfizer-BioNTech’s two-dose Covid vaccine delivers “very strong” results after just one shot.

The news comes as countries around the world struggle to vaccinate their populations amid rising Covid cases in most regions.

More than 124 million infections have been reported worldwide and the death toll from Covid has exceeded 2.7 million, according to Johns Hopkins University.

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Business

Virgin Galactic (SPCE) falls after check delays push again tourism service

Virgin Galactic (SPCE) falls after test delays push back tourism service

Preflight operations are ongoing on the Unity SpaceShipTwo vehicle and the company’s mother ship Eve.

Virgo Galactic

Virgin Galactic shares fell in trading on Friday after the company’s fourth quarter results showed delays in its flight test program. The expected start of its commercial service has now been postponed to 2022.

The space tourism company reported a quarterly loss that was in line with Wall Street analysts’ expectations, but the next space flight test of its SpaceShipTwo vehicle “Unity” has been postponed from February to May. The company identified an electromagnetic interference problem with Unity on a new flight control computer. CEO Michael Colglazier said the company anticipates eight to nine weeks of proofreading.

Delays in Virgin Galactic’s spacecraft testing program, which had previously been thrown back after an engine stall during a space flight attempt in December, caused the company to postpone its schedule for starting regular space tourism flights.

Virgin Galactic’s shares fell 11.9% on Friday, trading at $ 37.23 per share. The share has risen significantly since the beginning of the year and has gained more than 55% since the beginning of the year, even after the decline on Friday.

The new plan for 2021

Colglazier gave investors an updated look at the milestones Virgin Galactic is expected to achieve this year given the testing delays.

The company’s next big event won’t be Unity, but rather the launch of the second spacecraft in the Virgin Galactic fleet – and the first of its SpaceShip III generation. According to Colglazier, the SpaceShip III vehicle has a “modular design” with “improved manufacturing and assembly processes” that the company expects to enable “better performance in terms of flight rate” and maintenance.

In the meantime, Virgin Galactic will be working this spring to address the electromagnetic interference (EMI) issue with Unity. The company’s analysis found that EMI was the main culprit behind the flight abandonment in December, and additional EMI issues during pre-flight preparations resulted in Virgin Galactic withdrawing from a space test expected earlier this month.

“To reduce EMI levels, we will add functionality to the new flight control computer. Once we have completed these changes, we will thoroughly test the system on site in both the lab and Unity and then begin our flight test program again,” said Virgin Galactic President Mike Moses on the company’s earnings conference call.

Unity’s flight attempt in May will effectively be a replica of the December test with only two pilots on board.

Meanwhile, Virgin Galactic expects the first SpaceShip III vehicle “to begin gliding tests this summer,” Colglazier said. In addition, the company will begin assembling a second SpaceShip III vehicle.

“Our current flight test protocol for the first SpaceShipThree vehicle is four glide flights and four powered flights, and we expect the space flights to generate revenue,” said Colglazier.

A shadowy look at the company’s upcoming SpaceShip III generation.

Virgo Galactic

Given Unity’s past delays, Coglalzier declined to provide specific target dates for the second space flight attempt, saying only that Virgin Galactic expects it to happen “this summer”. Unity’s second space flight will carry four passengers along with the pilots – most of the people Virgin Galactic has flown at one time.

Then Virgin Galactic will conduct a third space flight test, in which Unity company founder Sir Richard Branson has been on the road for almost two decades.

The company added a fourth space flight test for Unity as part of a partnership with the Italian Air Force. Colglazier said the flight will carry three passengers and several research payloads that will serve as “suborbital astronaut training” for the Italians. That flight is expected to “take place in late summer or early fall,” said Colglazier, and will complete Unity’s flight tests.

Virgin Galactic then begins a period of maintenance outages that Colglazier expects to last about four months. The company will carry out an “analysis and rehabilitation phase” with its carrier aircraft Eve, Spacecraft Unity and SpaceShip III.

“We decided to implement improvements and accelerations of the long-term maintenance updates for our mother ship Eve to improve the predictability and frequency of the flight rate,” said Colglazier.

Given the downtime, Virgin Galactic now expects “Unity to begin flying private astronauts in early 2022” – marking the start of the company’s commercial space tourism service. The company most recently believes that “SpaceShip III will be able to complete its flight tests,” Colglazier said early next year.

Wall Street lowers expectations

Virgin Galactic pilots walk to the company’s SpaceShipTwo Unity spacecraft attached to the Eve jet carrier aircraft.

Virgo Galactic

Several analysts have adjusted expectations for Virgin Galactic’s future results, lowering prospects in light of the testing delays.

“The big news out of print was the redesign of the flight plan,” said UBS analyst Myles Walton in a statement to investors.

UBS has a neutral rating for Virgin Galactic and is lowering its price target from $ 52 per share to $ 40 per share. Walton said he saw “a bit more technical risk on the agenda than before” despite being “encouraged by the speed in building a base for economies of scale when the green light is given to commercial operations”.

Alembic Global Advisors downgraded Virgin Galactic from overweight to neutral, with the price target shifting from $ 27 per share to $ 39 per share.

“What drives our downgrade is a combination of the stock’s current valuation (the stock has risen 78% since more than doubling in 2020) and a fresh outlook from management, the additional investment and longer time it takes to achieve the Passenger travel by consumers who now appear to be on a timeline of early 2022, “Alembic analyst Pete Skibitski wrote in a note.

Credit Suisse analyst Robert Spingarn adjusted his company’s price target for Virgin Galactic from $ 36 to $ 42 per share at the start of the year in light of the company’s strong performance.

“The updated plan, based on higher numbers and newer versions of the spacecraft, is likely to take longer than what we considered when we started reporting,” Spingarn said.

Credit Suisse pushed back its forecast that Virgin Galactic would achieve a high volume of flights from Spaceport America in New Mexico by 2025 from 2024. Spingarn also noted that Virgin Galactic appears to be “happy” with about 11-quarters cash on their runway, according to current quarterly burn rate.

“We now have a higher line of investment which, depending on the pace of further progress and the burn rate, could require additional capital by the end of 2022,” noted Spingarn.

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World News

Nasdaq rebounds from worst sell-off since October, Dow falls 100 factors

Dow futures jump 200 points on better-than-expected Goldman earnings, stimulus hopes

Traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Source: The New York Stock Exchange

Tech stocks lifted the broader market higher in volatile trading on Friday, rebounding from heavy losses after a key inflation indicator showed tame price pressures.

The Nasdaq Composite rose 1.7% as Apple, Facebook and Microsoft each gained more than 2%. The tech-heavy benchmark swung wildly on Friday, even falling 0.7% at one point. The S&P 500 gained 0.6% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 150 points, led by Salesforce and Chevron.

Some investors consoled themselves with the consumer spending price index, which pointed to subdued inflation in January. The PCE index, which the Federal Reserve is closely monitoring, rose 0.3% for the month, slightly above expectations of 0.2%. However, it rose only 1.5% year-on-year and was in line with Dow Jones estimates.

Government bond yields initially fell after the inflation data was released, but later bounced back from their lows. The 10-year yield was last trading near 1.5% after rising above 1.6% at one point on Thursday. The 10-year interest rate has increased more than 50 basis points since the start of the year, a sharp increase for a bond rate that is used as a benchmark for mortgage rates and auto loans.

“When the market starts to believe that the Fed has somehow lost control of the bond market, all of this tantrum idea will crop up,” Art Cashin, director of floor operations at UBS, said on CNBC’s “Squawk” on the street on Friday . “

Falling interest rates alarmed stock investors, bringing the Nasdaq Composite to its worst session since October the day before. The Dow fell 559 points and pulled back from a record high. The S&P 500 lost 2.5% while the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 3.5%.

Economists and investment managers say the bond market will respond to positive economic conditions as vaccines roll out and GDP projections improve, which should benefit corporate earnings. The move could also signal inflation faster than expected.

The sheer pace of the surge has also dampened investor appetites for highly valued areas of the market. Higher interest rates reduce the value of future cash flows, so they can compress stock valuations. With Thursday’s 10-year yield spike, it was also above the S&P 500’s dividend yield, meaning stocks – considered riskier assets – have lost that fixed-payment premium over bonds.

“Until recently, market participants could digest the uptrend in long-term interest rates, but it appears that the next hike in interest rates will be a bigger bite,” said Charlie Ripley, senior investment strategist at Allianz Investment Management. said in an email.

“Given where real returns have been, they were just too low given growth expectations, and it is likely that long-term real returns will continue to rise as economic data improves,” he added.

Popular big tech stocks like Alphabet, Facebook and Tesla, all of which started the year strong, fell 3.2%, 3.6% and 8%, respectively, on Thursday. Apple, one of the largest, cash-intensive companies in the world, saw its share price fall more than 15% last month.

Instead of technology, where companies borrow more on average, investors are investing money in so-called reopening businesses and buying stocks of companies that would benefit most from the introduction of the vaccine and a return to regular travel and hospitality trends.

Energy has increased 6.8% this week alone. This is by far the biggest winner as consumers around the world are expected to be driving and flying soon as they did before the Covid-19 pandemic. Industry and finance are the only other sectors in the Green Week so far.

The S&P 500 is down 2% so far this week while the Nasdaq is down 5%. The Dow Industrials is down 0.3%.

– CNBC’s Kevin Stankiewicz contributed to the coverage.

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World News

Nasdaq falls greater than 1% as tech sell-off continues, Dow trades off low on Powell

Nasdaq falls more than 1% as tech sell-off continues, Dow trades off low on Powell

Tech stocks led the broader market down for a second day on Tuesday, amid higher interest rates and a rotation in stocks more linked to the economic rebound.

The Nasdaq Composite fell 1.4% for the first time since November 3, falling below its 50-day moving average, a key technical indicator. The S&P 500 fell 0.4% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 70 points to its lows after 360 points.

Stocks rebounded from their lows after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell told Congress in his testimony that inflation is still “weak” and the economic outlook is still “highly uncertain”, which is what concerns a change in policy by the central bank.

“The economy is far from our employment and inflation targets, and it will likely take some time to make significant further progress,” said the Fed chief in prepared remarks for the Senate Banking Committee.

Fears of inflation have risen in recent weeks amid a sharp rise in bond yields as policy makers debated another round of economic relief. Investors fear that a price hike due to government incentives could force the central bank to raise short-term borrowing costs.

“The Fed is focused on employment and appears very poised to absorb higher inflation and excesses in the financial market, creating financial instability in hopes of getting there,” said Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer of the Bleakley Advisory Group , in a note. “But as can be seen at the long end of the yield curve, the markets have a say in this too and speak loudly. Hopefully the Fed officials will listen at some point.”

Tech stocks, the most vulnerable to higher interest rates, have sold out in the past few days. Investors also rushed to book profits on these pandemic winners, whose valuations have reached historically high levels.

Tesla was trading 4% lower after previously falling 13% after falling 9% in the previous session. Apple lost 1.7% after falling 3% on Monday. The iPhone maker’s stock is down about 11% over the past month.

Small caps also came under pressure as the Russell 2000 fell 1.9% on Tuesday and rose 6.5% in February. Those shabby value shares outpaced the S&P 500 in 2021 amid optimism about the vaccine launch and economic reopening.

“The sell-off of tech darlings and popular small caps could be interpreted as the beginning of market volatility,” said Chris Larkin, chief executive officer for trading and investing products at E-Trade. “It’s not to say that stocks have run their course, it’s more that cyclical sectors like energy and finance are more attractive as technology takes a back seat.”

The 10-year government bond yield, which has been rising steadily since early 2021, remained steady at 1.36% on Tuesday. So far this month the key rate has risen by an impressive 28 basis points. The 30-year yield hit a year-high of 2.2% on Monday. One basis point is 0.01%.

The losses incurred during Tuesday’s session contributed to growing divergence between key areas of the market. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite, which fell 2.5% on Monday, is down about 4% this week.

The Dow, which comprises a larger proportion of cyclical stocks, is down a far more modest 0.1% since Friday’s close as investors pick up names they believe will benefit from an economic rebound. Energy and finance – two of the best performing sectors this year – again supported the market on Tuesday.

Jonathan Golub, chief strategist at Credit Suisse in the US, believes cyclical stocks will take the market to new highs as the year progresses, driven by the upside in earnings and optimism about the economic reopening.

“Rising interest rates – a benefit to finance – and copper and oil prices – a boon to industry, energy and materials – further reinforce this favorable backdrop,” Golub said in a statement on Tuesday.

Credit Suisse increased its S&P 500 year-end target from 4,200 to 4,300. The new forecast corresponds to an 11.5% rally.

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World News

Dow falls greater than 100 factors amid price fears, Apple and Tesla shares decline

Dow falls more than 100 points amid rate fears, Apple and Tesla shares decline

US stocks fell on Monday as a steady rise in bond yields hurt appetite for risk-weighted assets, particularly growth technology stocks.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 120 points. The S&P 500 lost 0.7%, led by technology and consumer discretionary. The Nasdaq Composite fell 1.1%.

Some equity investors have been increasingly concerned over the past few weeks about rapidly rising government bond yields as they could hurt especially high-growth companies that rely on easy borrowing while reducing the relative attractiveness of stocks.

Tesla stock lost 3% after falling 4% last week. Big tech stocks came under pressure as Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix and Alphabet traded at least 1% less.

The yield on 10-year government bonds rose last week by 14 basis points to 1.34%, the highest level since February 2020. The reference yield rose on Monday by a further 3 basis points to 1.37%. So far this month the reference rate has risen by 28 basis points. One basis point is 0.01%.

“This movement in returns should be watched closely by investors,” said Matt Maley, chief marketing strategist at Miller Tabak, in a note. “Just because long-term interest rates are extremely low on a historical basis, we don’t think they need to rise as much as most experts believe … before they affect the stock market.”

All eyes will be on Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell as he gives his semi-annual testimony on the economy to the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday. His comments on rates and inflation could set the market direction for the week.

Meanwhile, many on Wall Street believe the rise in bond yields is a sign of growing confidence in the economic recovery and stocks should be able to absorb higher interest rates on strong gains.

“We don’t see the recent surge in returns as a threat to the bull market,” said Keith Lerner, chief market strategist at Truist, in a note. “Given that we are in the early stages of an economic recovery, monetary and fiscal policies remain supportive, and the strong recovery in earnings and cheap relative valuations maintain our overweight position on equities.”

The move on Monday came after the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite posted a two-week winning streak last week, losing 0.7% and 1.6% respectively. The blue-chip Dow was up 0.1% over the same period, supported by Caterpillar and JPMorgan.

The market goes into the last week of February with solid gains. The Dow and S&P 500 are up more than 5% this month, while the Nasdaq is up 6.2%. The small-cap Russell 2000 outperformed this month, up 9.3%.

On the pandemic, the White House said it expects to ship millions of delayed coronavirus vaccine doses this week after a widespread winter storm disrupted logistics. Governor Andrew Cuomo said Sunday that a New York resident tested positive for the variant of Covid-19, which was first identified in South Africa.

The airline’s shares rebounded after Deutsche Bank upgraded several stocks. American Airlines rose more than 7%.

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Entertainment

‘Tiny Fairly Issues’ Falls for Large Ugly Ballet Stereotypes

‘Tiny Pretty Things’ Falls for Big Ugly Ballet Stereotypes

In the cinema, ballet has long served as fodder for scenes of horror and brutality. It makes sense: careers are short and there is always another dancer waiting with better feet, a higher jump and – this undeniable thing – youth in the wings. But dance is also a way to show feelings and the inner spirit without words. A body can lose control. It can appear human and transform into something else: scary, tortured, exaggerated. It can harbor horror.

“The Red Shoes” (1948) is an opulent look at a young ballerina rising up and dancing herself to death. New is “Black Swan” (2010), a psychological drama in which another young dancer goes insane during the production of “Swan Lake” in a company. Stereotypes? For sure. Problematic? Yes. But in the case of supernatural horror, it’s not about realism.

The horror in “Suspiria,” in both the 1977 and 2018 versions, involves witches who pursue dance academies. The dancers in Gaspard Noé’s “Climax” are disturbed and take drugs. I like parts of all of these films. They are grown up. So it is with the excellent “Billy Elliot” (2000), and that’s about an 11 year old boy. It shows dance as a form of catharsis: Billy, who grew up in northern England during the grim miners’ strike in 1984, had a reason to dance.

But “Tiny Pretty Things” is cheap: it’s like an 11-year-old trying to act like an adult – and to get dressed. It’s a dirtier version of “Center Stage” (2000), a popular film that turned towards nonsense and that was not well served due to its broad characterizations and stereotypes. Add to this the trauma and agony associated with Flesh and Bone, a Starz miniseries from 2015, and the endless scandal of Gossip Girl.

It should come as no surprise that in “Tiny Pretty Things,” quiet and rehab don’t make a dancer overcome an injury: it’s drugs. One student, Bette, who dances with a broken metatarsal bone, needs more Vicodin. She says to her mother, “I can hobble around on Advil or you can help me get the lift off.”

It gets worse. Much of the hammy dialogue is delivered with a bizarre, manic sense of importance. There are lots of bulging eyes.

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Business

Tesla jumps 6% in heavy quantity forward of S&P 500 entry, inventory then falls a bit in after hours

Tesla jumps 6% in heavy volume ahead of S&P 500 entry, stock then falls a bit in after hours

People wearing face masks are seen in a Tesla showroom at a mall in Wuhan, Hubei province, the epicenter of the Chinese coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak on March 30, 2020.

Aly Song | Reuters

Tesla’s stock traded more than four times its average 30-day volume on Friday when passive funds bought the stock before Tesla joined the S&P 500. The stock will close before the opening bell on Monday based on Friday’s prices added to the benchmark index.

Amid the increase in volume, Tesla shares rose 5.96% on Friday, hitting a record high of $ 695 after switching between gains and losses in the last hour of trading. During after-hours trading, the stock fell approximately 3%.

The increased activity continued after hours, and by 4:45 p.m. ET, more than 200 million stocks had switched hands. That’s more than four times the average 30-day volume of the stock of 44,946,455, according to FactSet. Friday’s volume puts it in the top 10 most active trading days for the stock.

Based on Tesla’s Friday average price of $ 679.85, more than $ 131 billion of stocks changed hands.

Ahead of Friday’s meeting, S&P Dow Jones Indices estimated index fund managers would need to buy approximately 129.9 million Tesla shares valued at more than $ 85 billion.

However, investors unofficially tracking the S&P 500 also had to buy the stock, which is estimated to result in buying activity 50% to 100% above estimates.

– CNBC’s Robert Hum contributed to the coverage.

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