By Nicholas Jasinski | Wednesday, September 30
Progress. Investors
who were disheartened by last night's presidential debate may have
been pleasantly surprised by some bipartisan rumblings on the fiscal stimulus
front today. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she was
"hopeful" about a deal, while Treasury Secretary Steven
Mnuchin promised to give it
"one more serious try."
Pelosi and Mnuchin failed
to come to an agreement today, but both said they would continue to speak
in the coming days. There likely remains a wide gap between Democrats and
Republicans regarding the size and scope of a coronavirus relief and
fiscal stimulus package, but today represented marginal progress nonetheless.
The S&P
500 ended
the third quarter with a 0.8% gain, while the Dow
Jones Industrial Average added 1.2%, and the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.7%. The
indexes are up 8.5%, 7.6%, and 11%, respectively, over the past three months.
The market also saw a pair
of direct listings today. Data mining firm Palantir made its
debut at $10 a share, above its $7.25 "reference price" from
last night. The stock closed at $9.73, giving the company a valuation
of roughly $22 billion. Eric Savitz spoke with Palantir's COO Shaym
Sankar today.
Cloud-based project
management software company Asana likewise
traded well above its reference price of $21. The stock opened at $27 and rose
to $29.96 by the close. That makes it worth about $4.6 billion. Eric covered Asana's direct listing today as
well.
After the bell, the Federal
Reserve said it would extend by at
least another quarter limits on dividends and share repurchases for banks
with more than $100 billion in assets. The capital-return restrictions have
been in place since June, and are designed to ensure that banks are
sufficiently capitalized to handle potential loan losses.
The extension wasn't
entirely surprising to investors, Carleton
English wrote
this evening, but still makes it hard to love big bank stocks. Read the rest of
her report here.
No comments:
Post a Comment