Market Recap
US Markets:
Markets cooled off on the final trading day before the Thanksgiving holiday. Trading volume was lighter than usual today, and The Dow Jones fell after rip-roaring gains this week sent the index past 30,000 for the first time ever yesterday.
The Dow slid about 173.77 points, or 0.6%, to 29,872.47. The S&P 500 also dipped 0.2%, or 5.76 points after reaching an all-time closing high yesterday. The Nasdaq led the way and rose 0.5%.
Although US durable goods orders rose more than expected, economic data came in today that was not so encouraging and pushed the markets down. Initial jobless claims reached their highest level in 5 Weeks, and increased to 778K in the week ended November 21st, from the previous week’s revised level of 748K. This was also significantly worse than market expectations of 730K. US personal income also unexpectedly fell by 0.7% from a month earlier in October of 2020 compared to market expectations of flat.
Cryptocurrency:
Cryptocurrencies cooled off today after surging this week. Bitcoin somewhat pulled back after breaking past $19,000 yesterday, and XRP led the declines, plummeting by 10.42% after skyrocketing the last two days, and the better part of a month. XRP surged by over 21% on Monday and 15.47% yesterday due to a rise in unique addresses, buybacks from Ripple, and the possibility of a new product release. Litecoin also dropped by 5.40%, and Cardano dropped by 7.68%.
Overall Market:
European stocks ended mixed after closing at nine-month highs yesterday. Markets were volatile, and weighing optimism from coronavirus restrictions relaxing across Europe, the vaccine, and hopes of a post-Brexit trade deal, with pessimism due to rising COVID cases, the reports showing that European banks would not see profits return to pre-pandemic levels before 2022. Canada’s TSX also recorded its fifth straight session of gains, and closed above 17,300 for the first time since February.
WTI crude futures surged to over $46 a barrel and hit eight-month highs. Optimism continues stimulating the oil trade amidst optimism that a vaccine could cause a quicker recovery in fuel demand than anticipated. A possible delay in January’s planned production increase by OPEC+, and the start of the transition to President Biden’s administration, further added to the positive sentiment.
WHATS UP
Salesforce was the leading laggard on the Dow, and fell more than 5% after reports came out that the company was in talks to buy Slack Technologies. Slack on the other hand surged by more than 37% on the news.
Energy fell 2.4% and was the worst-performing sector in the S&P 500.
The Dow is still on pace for its biggest monthly gain since 1987, and is up more than 12% in November.
Small caps have also been surging this month with the Russell 2000 small-cap index hitting an all time high yesterday. Although the index dipped by .5% today, it is still up around 20% this month- on pace for its best-ever monthly performance.
Source: CNBC, TradingEconomics, Stockcharts, Yahoo! Finance
