Wall Street advances at open with rebound in housing data ceiling; Dow up 140 Pts By Investing.com

By Geoffrey Smith

Investing.com – US stock markets opened slightly higher on Tuesday, but another sign of weakening housing market took much of the energy of an overnight rebound.

At 9:40 a.m. ET (1:40 p.m. GMT), the market was up 140 points, or 0.4%, to 34,105 points, recovering only a fifth of its 2% loss on Monday, as the market was gripped by fears of another Covid-19. slowdown driven.

The rose 0.4%, while the, which had outperformed on the downside on Monday, lost another 0.2%.

Earlier, building permit data for June fell surprisingly 5.1%, to its lowest level since November. Granular data in the report showed declining permits across all major regions, amid higher raw material prices and anecdotal labor shortages. Housing starts rose, but Ian Shepherdson of Pantheon Macroeconomics argued that the number of housing starts “was more noise than signal.”

“Housing market activity, both sales and housing starts, has yet to fully adjust to the nearly 30% drop in mortgage applications since their peak in December, we expect. so to further declines over the next few months, ”Shepherdson said, adding that it was still a long way off. It’s clear that mortgage applications have bottomed out after falling from their post-Covid peak.

Fears of a resurgence of the pandemic manifested themselves in a 7.2% increase in Novavax (NASDAQ 🙂 and an increase of 5.1% Modern (NASDAQ 🙂 stocks. BioNTech (NASDAQ 🙂 shares also hit a new record with a gain of 2.0%. Stocks were also bolstered by signs of a policy change at Fox News, where host Sean Hannity and others suddenly fell behind in supporting the nationwide vaccination campaign. Fox has so far been a channel for some of the more skeptical opinions about Covid-19 vaccines.

A heavy day for the gains, IBM (NYSE 🙂 the stock stood out with a 4.8% gain after revenue growth – its Achilles heel over the past decade – far exceeded expectations, boosting confidence in its transformation into a cloud-centric service provider.

HCA (NYSE 🙂 stock also stood out, rising 11% after also providing a quarterly update well ahead of expectations, reflecting bigger rival UnitedHealth (NYSE 🙂 enjoying a rally. non-Covid-related procedures as the pandemic eases. Revenue increased 30% from the previous year, while comparable emergency room visits increased 40%. The company has also raised its forecast for the year. Elsewhere in healthcare, a new partnership with UnitedHealth helped Peloton Interactive (NASDAQ 🙂 stock rise 3.2%, more than recouping its losses on Monday.

On the decline, Global Coinbase (NASDAQ 🙂 the stock fell 2.2% as a number of cryptocurrencies, including, extended their decline. Virgin Galactic (NYSE 🙂 stock also fell 7.2% after Amazon (NASDAQ 🙂 founder Jeff Bezos made his first space jaunt with a low-orbit flight lasting over 15,000 feet. ‘just over 10 minutes. The flight stressed that Virgin will face competition throughout the nascent space tourism industry.