US stocks rally as momentum stocks live up to their name
All three indexes finished in the green.
US stocks bounced back strongly on Thursday, as the S&P 500 erased the prior session’s losses with a 0.6% gain, the Nasdaq 100 was up 0.9%, and the Russell 2000 booked an advance of more than 1%.
The iShares MSCI USA Momentum Factor ETF snapped its longest streak of underperforming the SPDR S&P 500 ETF in over a year, with both AI-geared megacaps and more speculative nonprofitable tech stocks rallying strongly.
The S&P sector ETFs for energy, tech, industrials, and materials all gained more than 1%.
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Stocks that moved higher:
Tesla, which reported earnings after the bell on Wednesday, was red in premarket trading as investors worried over weaker margins and growing costs, but recovered by midday to finish up over 2%.
GameStop surged amid bullish options flows, with a put/call ratio of just 0.1.
Las Vegas Sands soared after a strong Q3 earnings report driven by strong momentum in Macau and Singapore that fueled analyst optimism.
Quantum stocks including IonQ, Rigetti, and D-Wave Quantum, soared after some outlets reported that the Trump administration is in talks to invest directly in the sector, though other sources contradicted the account.
American Airlines flew higher as its third-quarter loss came in smaller than expected.
West Pharmaceutical spiked after reporting quarterly earnings that showed continued GLP-1 demand.
Stocks that moved lower:
Molina Healthcare sank after an earnings miss driven by its Affordable Care Act plans, dragging down peers Centene and Oscar Health with it.
IBM, which reported earnings after the bell yesterday, was down over 5% in early trading as analysts and investors parsed its results, but managed to pare losses through the session.
Beyond Meat had another brutal session that started even before the opening bell, where the meme stock saw extremely high trading volumes.
Super Micro Computer fell after announcing preliminary Q1 net sales far below Wall Street’s expectations.
Southwest Airlines dropped on bearish options activity even though its third-quarter earnings beat expectations.
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