US STOCKS-Wall Street on track to break 3-day losing streak as tech stocks rise
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* Kohl’s drops after warning about profit margin
* Ralph Lauren slips because forecasts are lower than estimates
* Indexes up: Dow 0.67%, S&P 1.1%, Nasdaq 1.73% (add comment, details; update prices)
By Echo Wang
May 20 (Reuters) – Major Wall Street indices rebounded after a three-day drop on Thursday, thanks to gains in tech stocks, the smallest weekly jobless claims since the start of a pandemic recession have bring up the spirits.
Bitcoin regained ground to trade nearly $ 40,000 a day after a sharp sell-off, helping to renew appetite for risk. Crypto-exchange operator Coinbase Global rose 3.7%. Crypto-miner Riot Blockchain fell 1%, Marathon Digital Holdings fell 1.5%.
“There is a great risk of regulatory risk for crypto. It is not fully appreciated,” said Jay Hatfield, founder and CEO of Infrastructure Capital Management in New York. “Central banks have a monopoly on money. And so we just think it’s a little surprising that they haven’t enforced that monopoly.”
The number of Americans filing new unemployment benefits fell to 444,000 in the week ended May 15, down for the third time in a row, suggesting that job growth has resumed this month here, even if companies are always desperate for workers.
Major Wall Street indices fell for the third straight session on Wednesday after minutes from the Federal Reserve meeting last month indicated that many policymakers believed it would be appropriate to discuss easing support in period of crisis, such as reduction in bond purchases, at the next meetings if the strong economic momentum is sustained.
“Right now there is really only one driving force in the market, and that’s the Fed and the potential timing of quantitative reduction and easing,” Hatfield added.
Signs of rising inflation have heightened bets that the Federal Reserve may tighten policy soon, hitting rate-sensitive growth stocks that have put the tech-savvy Nasdaq on track for its release. fifth consecutive weekly decline.
Technology and communications services grew the most among S&P’s top 11 sectors. Energy was the only sector in the red.
At 1:47 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 228.16 points, or 0.67%, to 34,124.2, the S&P 500 gained 45.46 points, or 1.10%, to 4,161.14 and the Nasdaq Composite added 229.57 points, or 1.73%, to 13,529.30.
Retailers were a weak point. Ralph Lauren Corp fell 8.33% after forecasting sales for the full year below analyst estimates.
Kohl’s Corp fell 10.02% after warning of a severe blow to its annual profit margin due to rising labor and shipping costs, as well as selling fewer products to the high price.
Rising issues outnumbered falling issues on the NYSE by a ratio of 1.69 to 1; on the Nasdaq, a ratio of 1.74 to 1 favored the advances.
The S&P 500 posted 13 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 50 new highs and 22 new lows. (Reporting by Echo Wang in New York; Additional reporting by Medha Singh and Shashank Nayar in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel and Aurora Ellis)