Medicare Agent News: Snapping the Streak

Thursday, February 23, 2023

Snapping the Streak

By Connor Smith Thursday, February 23

Bouncing Back. U.S. stocks rallied this afternoon to snap the S&P 500's four-session losing streak.

The S&P 500 rose 0.5% to cut the market benchmark's recent losing streak at four days. It's still down 1.6% in February. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.3% to snap a two-day losing streak of its own. The Dow was off 0.8% at its intraday low before mounting a comeback in the final two hours of the session. The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.7%, building on Wednesday's gains to rise 0.9% over the last two trading days.

Nvidia led the S&P 500 with a gain of 14% following the chipmaker's latest earnings report last night. Oanda analyst Edward Moya believes to the firm's outlook was a sign demand for artificial intelligence processors is rising.

"Betting on AI will be a strong play going forward and many traders like how Nvidia has positioned itself," Moya writes.

Barron's Karishma Vanjani and Brian Swint note that all three indexes were down earlier in the session, as traders responded to the day's economic data. They write:

Economic data on Thursday was a mixed bag. Gross domestic product data showed the economy grew at 2.7% annual rate in the fourth quarter, revised lower from the 2.9% published in January, although still growing from last year’s levels.

Jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, fell to 192,000 for the last week, below consensus of 199,500,indicating a resilient labor market. That’s bad news for the Fed, which is looking for signs of a weakening job market that can bring down demand for goods.

“Today’s economic data is a reminder that parts of the economy remain relatively strong amid high inflation and aggressive rate hikes,” said Mike Loewengart, head of model portfolio construction at Morgan Stanley.

Investors will get the Federal Reserve's preferred inflation gauge tomorrow with the release of Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index.