Wall Street jumps as investors return to megacaps
Wall Street's three benchmarks ended higher on Monday as investors returned to megacap growth stocks, helping both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite recover from their worst weekly performance since April. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was also back in positive territory, breaking a two-session skid since hitting an all-time closing high last Wednesday. Megacaps Alphabet, Meta Platforms and Tesla all advanced between 2.2 percent and 5.1 percent after being major drags on the market last week. Nvidia also rose 4.8 percent% after Reuters reported the artificial intelligence chip leader was working on a version of its new flagship AI chips for the China market that would be compliant with current US export controls. "We think this move today probably has more to do with a rebound from the selling that occurred last week than anything else," said Jason Pride, chief of investment strategy & research at Glenmede. Chief among the other factors on traders' minds was a re-examination of the state of the presidential race after US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris' candidacy for the November election on Sunday. Biden's exit could prompt investors to unwind trades on bets that a victory for Republican Trump would increase US fiscal and inflationary pressures. But some analysts said markets could benefit from an increased chance of a divided government under the next administration. Trump-linked stocks were mixed on Monday, with Trump Media & Technology Group dropping 0.8 percent, while software firm Phunware gained 4 percent. Having digested the news of Biden's withdrawal, investors will now be looking for answers to key questions including who will join Harris on the Democratic presidential ticket and to what degree, if any, the vice president will deviate from the platform which Biden was headlining. The S&P 500 gained 1.08 percent, at 5,564 points, while the Nasdaq Composite climbed 1.58 percent, to 18,008. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.32 percent, to 40,415. Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike slumped 13.5 percent, extending losses after a software update from the company sparked Friday's global tech outage. (Reuters)