Topline
Major stock indexes rose to multi-week highs early Thursday as a lack of news on the nation’s banking sector proved to be good news for investors.
Key Facts
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 200 points, or 0.6% in early trading, rising to its highest level since March 8, the day before a collapse in bank stocks weighed down the broader market.
The S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.7% and 0.8%, respectively, and each index hit their highest levels this month.
Oanda analyst Craig Erlam wrote in a Thursday note to clients that confidence was “slowly returning” after a “second week without serious drama,” noting Thursday and Friday trading will reveal how much investors’ “shattered confidence has been repaired” heading into the weekend.
Bank stocks, badly battered earlier this month, once again led the rally, with nine of the 10 largest U.S. bank stocks gaining early Thursday; that grouping has recovered $87 billion in market value this week.
Economic data released Thursday morning helped bolster gains as Wall Street interpreted higher-than-expected weekly initial jobless claims and a cooler-than-expected quarterly gross domestic product reading as evidence of broader economic slowdown as the Federal Reserve looks for signs of such in its campaign to bring down inflation.
Crucial Quote
“To say a lot has transpired in the markets over the past three weeks would be an understatement,” Sevens Report analyst Tom Essaye wrote in a Thursday note to clients. The market shifting its primary focus from how high the Fed would raise interest rates to how deep the banking crisis cut was among the most severe “whiplash” moments over the last two decades, Essaye declared.
Surprising Fact
The correlation of bond and stock returns are at their highest levels in the U.S. since 2000, according to analysis published Thursday by Bernstein’s Sarah McCarthy and Mark Diver. Investors have “nowhere to hide” as the typically contrary asset classes largely move in the same direction, McCarthy and Diver wrote.
Tangent
Bitcoin was flat in early Thursday trading, holding at just below $28,700, its highest price since last June. The rally for bitcoin, which is up more than 70% year-to-date, comes amid a flurry of troublesome news in the digital asset space – a Monday lawsuit from U.S. regulators against the largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance marked one of several crackdowns facing the sector.
Crypto Crackdown: Here Are All The Major Crypto Firms Facing Charges From Regulators This Year (Forbes)
These Bank Stocks Hit Lows—Some Even All-Time Lows—This Month (Forbes)
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