Tech Can't Be Stopped

By Nicholas Jasinski |  Tuesday, July 14

Tech Bounce. Today started how yesterday ended, with a rare-for-recent-times rout in technology stocks. They have been consistent winners throughout the coronavirus crisis, but many were deep in the red shortly after the open today.

That followed yesterday's stunning reversal in the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite, which went from an intraday record, up more than 2%, to finishing down more than 2%. 

By midday today, technology was the only losing sector in the S&P 500. But without much strength in other sectors to keep it afloat, the index was only modestly higher overall.

Luckily, tech investors swooped in soon after to stem the bleeding and keep the rally going. The sector rebounded through the afternoon to close up 1.1%, and lifted broader indexes. Still, some of 2020’s hottest stocks ended the day in the red: Adobe lost 2%, Amazon.com fell 0.6%, and Netflix slipped 0.1%. Each had been down at least 4.5% this morning.

The Nasdaq closed up 0.9%, after being down 2% at its lows of the morning. The S&P 500 rose 1.3%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the day 2.1% higher.

Helping the Dow's rise was an 0.6% gain for JPMorgan Chase, which reported second-quarter earnings this morning, along with Citigroup and Wells Fargo. The banks each set aside billions of dollars for loan-loss reserves, taking a chunk out of profits. JPMorgan and Citi both reported results that were better than feared, but Citi's stock fell 3.9% today nonetheless. Wells Fargo had the toughest day, down 4.6%, after reporting a much larger-than-expected loss and slashing its dividend.

Al Root covered JPMorgan's report here, while Carleton English had the details from Citi here and Wells Fargo here. In other earnings news, Delta Air Lines reported a difficult quarter, needless to say, and gave a downbeat outlook. Daren Fonda has coverage of that here.

After the bell today, biotech company Moderna released data from a Phase 1 human trial of its Covid-19 vaccine in the New England Journal of Medicine. It said that all 45 patients in the early-stage group saw a "robust" immune response after receiving two doses of the vaccine and that they produced neutralizing antibodies. But 80% of patients also reported some adverse side effects from the vaccine, including fatigue, chills, headaches, or even a fever.

The result was good enough for Moderna investors, who boosted the stock close to 14% in after-hours trading this evening. Josh Nathan-Kazis has much more on the data here.

Earlier today, Josh reported that Moderna plans to start its a 30,000-participant Phase 3 trial of its Covid-19 vaccine on July 27. Read that report here.