Market Snapshot: Dow aims for sixth straight rise, Nasdaq carves out record as Wall Street adds to gains

On Friday, the Nasdaq ended 3.1 points shy of its Feb. 19 record closing high. The Nasdaq-100 NDX, -0.16%, meanwhile, rose 194.73 points, or 2% to 9,824.39, marking a record finish, but was off 0.2% on Monday at 9,803.

For the week, the Dow finished 6.8% higher, the S&P 500 gained 4.9%, while the Nasdaq advanced 3.3% and the Nasdaq-100 rose 2.8%.

What’s driving the market?

The Federal Reserve is set to release its updated policy statement on Wednesday and its first set of economic projections since December. Although investors aren’t expecting the central bank to dial back rates, which currently stand at a range of 0% and 0.25%, investors may be eager to garner clues from policy makers after Friday’s jobs report produced a stunning 2.5 million increase in payrolls in May, when economists had expected as many as 9 million jobs lost in the month, amid coronavirus-related closures.

Read:Fed will be encouraged by the May job-market surprise but unlikely to rip up its low-rates-for-longer script

“Following a massive upside surprise from the May employment report, the focus will shift to the Fed’s interpretation of the latest data and potential implications for monetary policy when the FOMC convenes this Wednesday,” wrote analysts at Deutsche Bank, led by Brett Ryan, senior U.S. economist, in a research note dated June 5.

“We expect the June meeting to mark a first step away from a focus on crisis prevention toward more traditional goals of providing accommodation to support the recovery,” the researchers wrote.

Friday data showed that the U.S. May unemployment rate fell to 13.3%from 14.7%. Economists polled by MarketWatch had predicted the loss of 7.25 million jobs and a May unemployment rate of 19%.

Markets have been kept afloat and have even made significant gains, despite civil unrest and evidence of rising Sino-American trade tensions, on the back of trillions of dollars in support from the U.S. government and the Fed, whose balance sheet has ballooned to $7.21 trillion from around $4 trillion in March.

Investors also have been heartened by efforts to reopen the U.S. economy in the aftermath of pandemic-related closures. Reopening plans are in various stages in all 50 U.S. states. New York City, one of the regions hardest hit by coronavirus, launched the first phase of its reopening on Monday, including the restart of construction and limited retail operations.

“The market sees conditions as ripe for a strong and sustainable period of economic recovery. It’s also become a story of defeating COVID-19. Beyond the traditional cyclical upswing, we saw a strong rotation into companies and sectors most deeply impacted by the virus,” said Lauren Goodwin, economist and multi-asset portfolio strategist at New York Life Investments.

Shares of oil and airline companies, industries that were both ravaged by lockdown measures instituted to stem the pandemic, were outperforming the broader market on Monday. The U.S. Global Jets JETS, +5.65%, a fund that tracks commercial airline stocks, is up 5.3%.

Still, California, Utah, Arizona, North Carolina, Florida, Arkansas and Texas, among other states, are reporting an increase in the number of COVID-19 infections after having lifted restriction, the Wall Street Journal reported, even as the overall case tally is sliding in the U.S., per data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

As of early Monday, there were more than 7 million confirmed cases of the deadly infection globally, with 1.9 million cases in the U.S., according to the data.

Which stocks were in focus?

• PG&E Corp. PCG, +1.19% Shares of  rose 0.8% Monday, after the San Francisco-based utility announced an equity investment of a total of $3.25 billion by investors including Appaloosa, Third Point LLC, Fidelity Management & Research Co. LLC and Zimmer Partners at a discount to current prices.
• Shares of Gilead Sciences Inc. GILD, +0.44% rose 0.5%, after Bloomberg reported over the weekend that U.K. drugmaker AstraZeneca PLC AZN, -2.54% made a preliminary approach regarding a potential merger, although the report said the companies weren’t in formal talks and Gilead was not currently interested in selling or merging.
• Shares of oil companies were bolstered as U.S. crude prices neared $40 a barrel. Marathon Oil Corp. MAR, +2.67% was up 10.7%, along with a 8.9% gain in Noble Energy Inc. NBL, +9.54%
• Shares of Dow component Boeing Co. BA, +11.47% surged 12.1% after analysts at Seaport said the worst had been priced in for the aircraft manufacturer. The most beaten-down industries have rallied sharply in recent sessions as they come back into favor again.

How are other assets trading?

Oil prices fell CL.1, -3.38% Monday investors focused on the prospect of increased production from some countries, even after OPEC+ agreed on Saturday to extend a pact to ease global output. West Texas Intermediate Crude was trading $1.34, or 3.2%, lower at $38.21 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

In precious metals, August gold GCM20, +0.89% on Comex was up $16.10, or 1%, at $1,699 an ounce, after finishing Friday trade at its lowest level since April 3.

The 10-year Treasury note yield TMUBMUSD10Y, 0.872% fell 4 basis points to 0.87%, following Friday’s surprising jobs report. Bond prices move in the opposite direction of yields.

The greenback edged 0.2% against its major rivals, as gauged by the ICE U.S. Dollar index DXY, -0.21%.

In global equities, the Stoxx Europe 600 index SXXP, -0.32% was down 0.3% and the FTSE 100 index UKX, -0.18% fell 0.2%.

In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei NIK, +1.37% closed 1.4% higher, the China CSI 300 000300, +0.51% finished 0.5% higher and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index HSI, +0.02% finished flat but in positive territory. South Korea’s Kospi index 180721, +0.11% gained 0.1%.