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By Alex
Eule | Wednesday, May 5 Leaving
the Nest. Things would be a
lot simpler if the stock market were just the 30 companies in the Dow
Jones Industrial Average. The index
rose 97 points, or 0.3%, to an all-time high today. The Dow, which turns
125 years old in three weeks, has closed at a record 22 times this year,
matching 2019's total -- and it's only May. The index is
benefiting from 2021's shift toward value stocks and away from pricier
tech stocks. The tech-heavy Nasdaq
Composite was down 0.4% on the day, its fourth
consecutive decline. It was a particularly tough day for the
stay-at-home stocks that helped lead the Nasdaq early in the pandemic. Peloton
Interactive tumbled 15% after the company announced
a recall of its treadmills. Roku, the
streaming TV platform, was off 4.8%. And e-commerce firm Etsy, which was
thriving a year ago in part by selling homemade face masks, fell 2.1%. Etsy was
down even more tonight after the company provided a
weak outlook for the second quarter. Not surprisingly, a year
after their Covid boom, the stay-at-home companies are facing a stretch of
tough comparisons. Etsy said
that it expects sales "to decelerate along with the rest of
e-commerce as we lap the tremendous 2020 growth rates." Investors, who
are never nostalgic, sent Etsy shares down 10% in late trading. (The
stock had been up 500% over the last three years.) Meanwhile,
reopening sensitive stocks are sending the opposite message, as
consumers venture out. Uber
Technologies, whose ride-sharing
services ground to a halt last year, posted better-than-expected
first-quarter numbers tonight and CEO Dara
Khosrowshahi talked about bigger things to
come: “Uber is starting to fire on all cylinders, as more consumers are
riding with us again while continuing to use our expanding delivery
offerings.” Uber's stock was still down on the earnings news. Meanwhile, WW, formerly
known as Weight Watchers, is also
seeing a bounce back as members return to in-person support
meetings. “The last two weeks is the first time in a year that our
workshop attendance was greater than our virtual workshop attendance,” CEO Mindy
Grossman told my colleague Avi
Salzman, after WW reported a
narrower-than-expected first-quarter loss. Its shares were up tonight. Tomorrow
offers more of the earnings contrast, with reports from some of last year's
standouts -- Moderna, Peloton,
and Wayfair -- and some of its laggards,
including Norwegian
Cruise Line and movie theater
chain AMC Entertainment. |
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DJIA: +0.29% to 34,230.34 The Hot
Stock: Caesars Entertainment +7.8% Best Sector:
Energy +3.2%
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