Earnings Push Equities Higher, Delta Concerns Linger: Markets Wrap

US stocks closed higher Tuesday as second quarter earnings continued to come in above expectations, mostly overshadowing concerns over the Delta variant and additional restrictions.

The S&P 500 rallied as companies largely beat on earnings estimates. Shares of Under Armour rose 7% after the athletic appeal company beat on second quarter profit expectations. Zillow Group and Moderna are among the companies set to report later this week.

Chinese tech giant Alibaba also reported higher-than-expected second quarter results, but shares lost 1.57% as China’s regulatory crackdown intensified. Similarly, Marriott International earnings showed a significant rebound from last year, but shares fell 1.82% as Delta variant concerns grow.

Investors and analysts are awaiting Friday’s jobs data. The non-farm payroll report will reveal when traders may start to see tapering from the Federal Reserve. Chairman Powell has indicated that there will only be a pullback in the easy-money policies when employment numbers start to improve.

Equities

• The Dow rose 0.8%.
• S&P 500 rallied 0.82%.
• Nasdaq gained 0.55%.

Insight

Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at The Leuthold Group, weighed in on inventory liquidation and what we can expect in markets going forward.

“Dwindling inventories have held back real-GDP growth, and widespread shortages of numerous products have led to the recent spike in the inflation rate. These undercurrents have, in turn, set off a raging debate at the Federal Reserve and among investors as to whether this inflation is, in fact, transitory or incessant? But, overall, the inability of companies to keep pace with an explosive revival in consumer demand has become the primary economic problem.”

DeFi

• Uniswap is trading at $21.21, down 5.26% in 24 hours at 4:00 pm ET.
• Chainlink is trading at $23.36, gaining 1.65% in 24 hours at 4:00 pm ET.

Crypto

• Bitcoin is trading around $38,052.15, down 2.1% in 24 hours at 4:00 pm ET.
• Ether is trading around $2,474.83, falling 4.69% in 24 hours at 4:00 pm ET.
• VIX is down 8.17% to 17.87 at 4:00 pm ET.

Fixed Income

• US 10-year Treasury yields 1.17% as of 4:00 pm ET.

Commodities

• Brent crude is at $72.49 per barrel, losing 1.02%.
• Gold fell 0.11% to $1,810.84.

Currencies

• The US dollar gained 0.01%, according to the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index.

In other news…

Tomorrow the Ethereum blockchain is set to undergo a significant transformation, or “hard fork” as it’s called in the open source world. A hard fork is a split in the underlying base code of the software that takes it a different direction than before. Changes expected include lower gas fees and potentially higher prices for ETH.

That’s it for today’s markets wrap. I’ll see you back here tomorrow.

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