Disney and big banks lead stocks to new all-time highs
By Paul R. La Monica, CNN Business
So much for Wall Street’s bulls selling in May and going away on summer vacation. The Dow hit a new all-time high Monday, led by gains in Disney and big banks Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase.
The Dow ended the day up about 126 points, or 0.4%, closing just below the 35,000 mark. The blue chips have now jumped more than 3% since the supposedly sleepy start of summer trading back in May.
The S&P 500 rose about 0.3% and the Nasdaq gained 0.2%, with both also notching fresh all-time highs. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq are each up about 5% since the beginning of May.
Disney was the best performer in the Dow Monday, gaining more than 4% following the strong box office numbers and solid streaming revenue for Marvel’s “Black Widow” over the weekend.
The Scarlett Johansson superhero movie is now the most successful hit of the pandemic era — showing that while some people are willing to spend $29.99 to watch a movie at home on Disney+, many moviegoers still want the big theatrical experience.
The second-best performing Dow stock was Goldman Sachs, which rose about 2.5% with second-quarter results on tap for Tuesday morning. JPMorgan Chase, which also will release its latest numbers Tuesday, was up nearly 1.5%.
Both banking giants are benefiting from the stock market boom: Each is expected to post solid trading revenue and healthy fees from their investment banking divisions thanks to strong demand for initial public offerings as well as an uptick in merger activity.
Monday was a mostly quiet day for the markets from a data standpoint, with no major earnings or economic reports on the calendar. But the rest of the week is shaping up to be a busy one.
Consumer price data for June comes out Tuesday morning, followed by a producer price report Wednesday.
Those numbers, as well as a retail sales report from the government on Friday, will give investors clues about how much of a threat inflation really is and whether or not consumers are holding back on spending as a result of rising prices.
It’s a busy week for earnings too. Financial giants Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, BlackRock and Morgan Stanley are all set to release their latest results. Earnings are also on tap from Pepsi, Delta and UnitedHealth.
Earnings are expected to rebound sharply from the second quarter of 2020, when much of the country was in pandemic shutdown mode. According to data from FactSet Research, profits for the S&P 500 are expected to soar 64% from a year ago.
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