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Stocks struggled to find direction despite the mostly positive vibes from Thursday’s economic data dump.
New claims for unemployment benefits for the week ended September 11 increased by 20,000 claims to 332,000 – slightly more than expected, but still near pandemic-era lows. Additionally, the four-week moving average of claims fell to 335,750, which is the lowest figure since March 2020.
Retail sales in August were more clearly positive, rising 0.7% month-over-month, surprising economists who had forecast a decline of 0.7% on average.
“US buyers rebounded well in August even as another wave of the virus sank confidence, suggesting decent underlying support for job growth and excessive savings,” said Sal Guatieri , Senior Economist at BMO Capital Markets. “The strength in general merchandise (3.5%) and furniture (3.7%) was tempered by virtually no change in clothing and foodservice. “
Another upside surprise came from the Philadelphia Fed Factory Index, which stood at 30.7 in September from 19.4 in August, signaling a significant jump in manufacturing activity in the region. .
Investors weren’t sure what to do with the information.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average went from an initial gain of 129 points to a loss of 274 points before stabilizing at a mere drop of 63 points (0.2%) to 34,751. S&P 500 (-0.2% to 4,473) and Nasdaq Composite (+ 0.1% to 15,181) experienced similar climbs and descents.
Other stock market news today:
- Small cap Russel 2000 showed a marginal decline to 2,232.
- Beyond meat (BYND, -2.3%) took a notable plunge today after Piper Sandler analyst Michael Lavery lowered the stock to Underweight Neutral – the equivalent of Sell and Hold, respectively . While noting that BYND is one of the early leaders in the plant protein market, “we believe its current all-channel retail momentum lags behind consensus expectations and that our estimates for catering can be high, â€Lavery wrote in a note to clients.
- Meal delivery company DoorDash (DASH, + 5.6%), on the other hand, received a boost after a bullish brokerage rating. Specifically, BofA Global Research analyst Michael McGovern upgraded DASH to Buy, citing expectations of “significant potential for three-year revenue growth from out-of-restaurant delivery.” He also pointed to the higher than expected growth of core restaurants and online penetration as reasons for the upgrade.
- U.S. Crude Oil Futures finished flat at $ 72.61 a barrel.
- Gold Futures fell 2.1% to $ 1,756.70 an ounce.
- The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) climbed 2.9% to 18.71.
- Bitcoin fell 1.4% to $ 47,443.29. (Bitcoin trades 24 hours a day; the prices listed here are at 4 p.m. each trading day.)
Get ready for a new batch of IPOs
Fall is here, which means the turning of the leaves, the pumpkin spice of everything… and probably one last batch of new stock hitting the public markets.
2021 saw an explosion in initial public offerings. Investment advisory firm IPO Renaissance Capital says the new offerings have raised more than $ 100 billion so far this year, already surpassing the record of $ 97 billion raised in the whole of 2000.
Much of this is due to the rise of Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) – a process some companies use to list on major exchanges while bypassing the usual route of IPOs.
However, traditional IPOs have also had the whole year, including the debuts of well-known names like Weber (WEBR), Bumble (BMBL) and Duolingo (DUOL).
Investors still have some chances of getting more offers before the end of 2021. We recently added a slew of new names to our list of upcoming IPOs, and all in all we have identified 14 potential listings. not to be missed which should be launched before the end of the year. Check them.
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