Stocks traded higher Thursday, after declining a day earlier, as traders continued to fixate on dimming prospects of more stimulus before the election. Third-quarter corporate earnings results rolled in mixed, and a new report weekly jobless claims came in better-than-feared.
Shares of Tesla (TSLA) gained more than 2%, after the electric vehicle-maker posted a fifth straight quarterly profit and reaffirmed its goal to hit a half-million vehicle deliveries this year. Chipotle (CMG), on the other hand, slid more than 4% after posting thinning margins as costs associated with a surge in delivery demand weighed on profitability.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters on Thursday that negotiators were “just about there” when it came to hashing out a deal for more virus-relief aid.
“The president wants a bill. That’s part of the opportunity that we have,” Pelosi said in Washington.
Stocks hit session highs shortly after her remarks, with the Dow gaining about 200 points. Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin were scheduled to speak on Thursday to discuss the deal, and the White House’s last public offer stood at around $1.88 trillion for a stimulus proposal, versus the $2.2 trillion plan put forth by House Democrats.
Still, traders have increasingly doubted that a deal might get inked and passed before the November election, injecting further uncertainty and volatility into markets this week. Pelosi told Bloomberg News on Tuesday that a deal would need to be written by the end of the week to have a shot at passing before the election. White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, for his part, told Fox Wednesday morning that negotiators were looking to get “some kind of deal in the next 48 hours or so.”
The Department of Labor released its weekly report on new jobless claims Thursday, which showed another 787,000 Americans filed for first-time unemployment insurance benefits, for a print much better than the 870,000 new claims expected. However, an increasing number of individuals exhausted state unemployment benefits and rolled onto longer-term pandemic-related assistance programs, underscoring the ongoing toll of the virus on the economy.
Thursday’s economic and earnings releases, however, are expected to take a back seat, with traders continuing to focus more heavily on the developments around stimulus talks, as well as the final presidential debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden.
“Despite a number of economic and earnings releases on Thursday, the only thing that will matter is the ‘sound and fury’ of the debate and the stimulus talks,” BTIG strategist Julian Emanuel said in a note Wednesday.
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2:41 p.m. ET: Stocks jump after Pelosi suggests negotiators were closing in on a stimulus agreement
The three major indices traded higher with just over an hour to go in the regular session, and the Dow shook off earlier declines to add more than 180 points.
Here’s where the three major indices were trading Thursday afternoon:
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S&P 500 (^GSPC): +19.33 points (+0.56%) to 3,454.89
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Dow (^DJI): +183.09 points (+0.65%) to 28,393.61
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Nasdaq (^IXIC): +22.6 points (+0.2%) to 11,508.43
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11:44 a.m. ET: Stocks lose steam as stimulus uncertainty lingers
The three major indices traded choppily Thursday, as stimulus talks out of Washington looked increasingly unlikely to yield an agreement in time for the November election. Each of the three major indices traded slightly below the flat line Thursday late morning.
The information technology and consumer discretionary sectors lagged alongside the consumer staples sector, after Kimberly-Clark delivered disappointing profit guidance. Shares of Salesforce and Dow Inc. lagged in the 30-stock Dow Jones Industrial Average.
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10:00 a.m. ET: Existing home sales rise for a fourth straight month in September, in another sign of housing market strength
Existing home sales jumped by a greater than expected 9.4% to an annualized rate of 6.54 million in September, according to the National Association of Realtors’ monthly report Thursday.
“Home sales traditionally taper off toward the end of the year, but in September they surged beyond what we normally see during this season,” Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist, said in a statement. “I would attribute this jump to record-low interest rates and an abundance of buyers in the marketplace, including buyers of vacation homes given the greater flexibility to work from home.”
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9:41 a.m. ET: Coca-Cola stems its sales decline, while Kimberly-Clark racks up costs
Consumer companies Coca-Cola (KO) and Kimberly-Clark (KMB) each reported quarterly results Thursday morning, offering more perspectives on the state of the consumer during the pandemic.
Coca-Cola beat consensus profit expectations…
Read More: Stocks rise after jobless claims improve, though stimulus deal remains elusive