Stocks were mostly higher Friday afternoon, recovering some ground after three straight days of losses, but were lower than they were earlier in the day. Investors remain focused on the future of the COVID-stricken economy and the potential for more stimulus to fix it.
The S&P 500 index was up less than 0.1% as of 2 p.m. Eastern. Gains in industrial and financial companies in the S&P 500 were outweighing losses in communication services, health care, technology and other sectors.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.2%, and the Nasdaq added 0.2%. The Russell 2000 index of small company stocks was up 2.3%, a sign that investors were anticipating more economic growth.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which is used to set mortgage rates, rose to 1.35%, though that’s still low by historical standards.
Wall Street continues to look to Washington for direction, as Democrats move forward with their $1.9 trillion stimulus plan to combat the coronavirus. Incremental moves were made this week, with the Biden administration signaling it would drop its call for a $15-an-hour minimum wage in this stimulus plan in order to get support from moderate Democratic senators.
The stimulus plan would include $1,400 checks to most Americans, additional payments for children, and billions of dollars in aid to state and local governments as well as additional aid to businesses impacted by the pandemic.
Much of the recent economic data has shown the U.S. economy could benefit from additional stimulus. Wall Street got a weekly jobless claims report Thursday that showed 861,000 Americans filed for unemployment last week, a rise from the previous week and higher than Wall Street had forecast. The Federal Reserve, in the minutes from its January meeting, also laid out the case for why additional stimulus would be necessary and not cause the economy to overheat.
Of particular note is investors’ concerns about inflation. The yield of the 10-year note has risen 0.17 percentage points this week alone, a significant rise in such a short period of time. Rising bond yields can indicate that investors are hopeful for more economic growth in the future, but it can also signal potential inflation coming down the road.
In other economic news, sales of previously occupied U.S. homes rose again last month, a sign that the housing market’s strong momentum from 2020 may be carrying over into this year.
Existing U.S. home sales rose 0.6% in January from the previous month to a seasonally-adjusted rate of 6.69 million annualized units, the National Association of Realtors said Friday. Sales rose 23.7% from a year earlier. It was the strongest sales pace since October. Homebuilder shares were broadly higher. PulteGroup rose 2.3%.
