US STOCKS-Stocks rebound in late-day rally on Wall Street

Tiziana Life Sciences

25/03/2021 20:42

* Weekly jobless claims fall
    * Biden calls jobless claims report economic progress
    * Nike skids on social media fallout over Xinjiang statement
    * Indexes rise: Dow 0.62%, S&P 0.52%, Nasdaq 0.12%

 (Adds final prices after 4 p.m. close)
    By Herbert Lash
    NEW YORK, March 25 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rose in a
late-day rally on Thursday as investors bought stocks likely to
do well in the recovery and picked up beaten-down Apple and
Tesla shares in anticipation that the U.S. economy grows at its
fastest pace in decades this year.
    President Joe Biden cited as economic progress Labor
Department data that showed a declining number of Americans
claimed unemployment insurance, news investors shrugged off
earlier as Wall Street traded lower most of the session.
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2LM2FD  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2LN26K
    The labor report on Thursday showed claims for unemployment
benefits dropped to a one-year low last week, a sign that the
U.S. economy is on the verge of stronger growth as the public
health situation improves and temperatures rise. 
    An end-of-quarter rebalancing of investment portfolios by
institutional investors added to another mostly seesaw session
in which the major Wall Street indexes rose and fell amid the
ongoing rotation from growth into so-called value stocks.
    Value stocks again outperformed growth stocks, rising 1.2%
in the former compared with a 0.1% slide in the latter, even as
Apple Inc  AAPL.O  and Tesla Inc  TLSA.O  led the rally. Tesla
added 1.6% and Apple 0.4%. 
    "It's a very confused stock market, there isn't real
leadership," said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment strategist at
Inverness Counsel in New York.
    "One day cyclicals are in favor, the next day it's tech-plus
is in favor," he said. "But on the positive side, there isn't
what I call aggressive selling."
    The Dow Jones Industrial Average  .DJI  rose 199.42 points,
or 0.62%, to 32,619.48. The S&P 500  .SPX  gained 20.38 points,
or 0.52%, to 3,909.52 and the Nasdaq Composite  .IXIC  added
15.79 points, or 0.12%, to 12,977.68.
    Volume on U.S. exchanges was 12.69 billion shares, compared
with the 13.84 billion average for the full session over the
last 20 trading days.    
    Earlier, the Dow was higher while the Nasdaq fell, a reverse
correlation that already has occurred far more this year than is
typical in an entire year, said David Bahnsen, chief investment
officer at the Bahnsen Group in Newport Beach, California.
    "Any reverse correlation between the Dow and Nasdaq is
pretty embedded right now, and I expect it will continue,"
Bahnsen said. "There is ongoing rotation out of tech, there's
ongoing de-risking for some of the small caps."
    The Nasdaq Composite  .IXIC  has fallen in March after four
straight months of gains as rosy economic projections lifted
demand for undervalued cyclical stocks, but also raised fears of
higher inflation as seen in the jump in 10-year Treasury yields.
    The rapid rise in the 10-year is not bearish but rather a
bullish indicator, Bahnsen said.
    The yield of the benchmark Treasury note rose to 1.6297%.  
    "It is happening because we're vaccinating, it is happening
as the economy reopens, it is happening because we're going to
get a really big, high single-digit GDP number this year," he
said.     
    The CBOE volatility index  .VIX  also seesawed, closing down
at 19.84.
    Shares of Nike Inc  NKE.N  fell 3.4% as the sporting goods
giant faced a Chinese social media backlash over its comments
about reports of forced labor in Xinjiang.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2LN04N
    Darden Restaurants Inc  DRI.N  surged 8.2%, the largest
percentage gainer on the S&P 500, after it announced a new share
buyback plan and forecast upbeat fourth-quarter revenue and
profit.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N2LN3CH 
    Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a
1.66-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.75-to-1 ratio favored advancers.
    The S&P 500 posted 16 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the
Nasdaq Composite recorded 30 new highs and 168 new lows.      
    

 (Reporting by Herbert Lash in New York
Additional reporting by Devik Jain in Bengaluru
Editing by Sagarika Jaisinghani and Matthew Lewis)
 ((herb.lash@thomsonreuters.com; 1-646-223-6019; Reuters
Messaging: herb.lash.reuters.com@reuters.net))