Thursday’s early trade: S&P, Nasdaq slump

NEW YORK: The S&P 500 eased from a record high on Thursday while the tech-heavy Nasdaq shed more than 1% as a...
19 Mar, 2021

NEW YORK: The S&P 500 eased from a record high on Thursday while the tech-heavy Nasdaq shed more than 1% as a spike in US bond yields accelerated a move out of pandemic winner tech stocks and into economy-linked financials and industrials.

The Russell 1000 value index, which is heavily comprised of cyclical stocks such as financials and energy, added about 0.3% while the Russell 1000 growth index, which includes technology stocks, dropped about 1.3%.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year notes crossed 1.75% to hit a 14-month high, pressuring high-growth companies including Apple Inc, Facebook Inc, Netflix Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Microsoft Corp dropped between 1.3% and 2.2%.

The blue-chip Dow, on the other hand, hit another record high a day after the Fed projected strongest growth in nearly 40 years as the COVID-19 crisis winds down, and repeated its pledge to keep its target interest rate near zero for years to come.

At 11:33 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 153.17 points, or 0.46%, to 33,168.54, the S&P 500 lost 15.76 points, or 0.40%, to 3,958.36 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 185.64 points, or 1.37%, to 13,339.56.

Read Comments