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New Closing Highs for Dow, S&P Despite China, Kabul Challenges
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Despite beginning trading at a big deficit this morning, following yet another record-high close on Friday, the Dow Jones once again turned its fortunes around and closed +0.31% for a fresh record high close this Monday. Down 284 points at session lows, the blue-chip index turned around to close +109 points on the day. The S&P 500 was close behind, +0.26% on the day, setting a new closing high of its own.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq, however, was not so fortunate: it closed -0.20% on the day, back beneath 14,800. The index’s graph over the past month looks to have a cap on it beneath 15,000. The small-cap Russell 2000 performed worse than the other major indexes Monday, -0.89%. The Russell is down -2.3% over the past 6 months. Year-to-date, the S&P 500 leads all four indexes, +21%.
Concerns about the Delta variant of Covid-19 in China this morning shook U.S. indexes to start the day, with commodities like oil shedding global prices per barrel. Chinese demand is obviously important across the spectrum of global investment, and with shutdowns in particular regions threatened or already underway, we see how markets react: swiftly. That said, the U.S. market appeared to shrug this off before lunchtime.
President Biden stands behind his decision to pull troops out of Afghanistan this afternoon, reacting to the biggest news story of the week following the surprisingly quick fall of Kabul. The Taliban, a deeply conservative group of Islamic idealogues initially consisting of academics in Afghanistan and Pakistan, have managed to grasp control of the long-troubled Central Asian nation months ahead of projected timelines.
Zacks Rank #3 (Hold)-rated Roblox (RBLX - Free Report) , a Silicon Valley-based video game creator, missed headline expectations considerably for the second of two reported quarters after today’s closing bell. The company posted a loss on the bottom line of -25 cents per share; expectations were for +27 cents. Revenues in the quarter reached $665 million, which was lower than the $690.2 million in the Zacks consensus.
Average Daily Active Users (DAU) rose 29% year over year to 43.2 million — slightly shy of the 43.3 million expected. Average booking per DAU was also a little short of expectations: $15.41 versus $15.58. Shares of RBLX, which had been up 14.5% since the company’s IPO in March of this year, are down -2.5% on the Q2 news.
Tomorrow morning, we’ll get a look at Retail Sales and Industrial Production numbers for July. While Retail Sales are expected to drop to -0.3% from June’s +0.6%, we look to be well off the recent high +11.3% reported in March, on account of stimulus checks being sent out by the U.S. government and spent. These days, we are relying on normal supply and demand conditions, which have likely been complicated by the Delta variant of late.
Image: Bigstock
New Closing Highs for Dow, S&P Despite China, Kabul Challenges
Despite beginning trading at a big deficit this morning, following yet another record-high close on Friday, the Dow Jones once again turned its fortunes around and closed +0.31% for a fresh record high close this Monday. Down 284 points at session lows, the blue-chip index turned around to close +109 points on the day. The S&P 500 was close behind, +0.26% on the day, setting a new closing high of its own.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq, however, was not so fortunate: it closed -0.20% on the day, back beneath 14,800. The index’s graph over the past month looks to have a cap on it beneath 15,000. The small-cap Russell 2000 performed worse than the other major indexes Monday, -0.89%. The Russell is down -2.3% over the past 6 months. Year-to-date, the S&P 500 leads all four indexes, +21%.
Concerns about the Delta variant of Covid-19 in China this morning shook U.S. indexes to start the day, with commodities like oil shedding global prices per barrel. Chinese demand is obviously important across the spectrum of global investment, and with shutdowns in particular regions threatened or already underway, we see how markets react: swiftly. That said, the U.S. market appeared to shrug this off before lunchtime.
President Biden stands behind his decision to pull troops out of Afghanistan this afternoon, reacting to the biggest news story of the week following the surprisingly quick fall of Kabul. The Taliban, a deeply conservative group of Islamic idealogues initially consisting of academics in Afghanistan and Pakistan, have managed to grasp control of the long-troubled Central Asian nation months ahead of projected timelines.
Zacks Rank #3 (Hold)-rated Roblox (RBLX - Free Report) , a Silicon Valley-based video game creator, missed headline expectations considerably for the second of two reported quarters after today’s closing bell. The company posted a loss on the bottom line of -25 cents per share; expectations were for +27 cents. Revenues in the quarter reached $665 million, which was lower than the $690.2 million in the Zacks consensus.
Average Daily Active Users (DAU) rose 29% year over year to 43.2 million — slightly shy of the 43.3 million expected. Average booking per DAU was also a little short of expectations: $15.41 versus $15.58. Shares of RBLX, which had been up 14.5% since the company’s IPO in March of this year, are down -2.5% on the Q2 news.
Tomorrow morning, we’ll get a look at Retail Sales and Industrial Production numbers for July. While Retail Sales are expected to drop to -0.3% from June’s +0.6%, we look to be well off the recent high +11.3% reported in March, on account of stimulus checks being sent out by the U.S. government and spent. These days, we are relying on normal supply and demand conditions, which have likely been complicated by the Delta variant of late.
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