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Stocks hung tenaciously onto gains Monday as Wall Street tried to rebound from a losing week. Investors were optimistic as the COVID-19 vaccine rollout began and Washington appeared a bit closer to hatching some sort of stimulus this week.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average stayed above breakeven 53.24 points to reach noon at 30,099.61.
McDonald’s was the best-performing Dow component, rising 2.5%.
The S&P 500 gained 12.93 points to 3,676.39. The tech and consumer discretionary sectors led the gains in the S&P 500, advancing more than 1% each.
The NASDAQ spiked 144 points, or 1.1%, to 12,521.87.
Both the Dow and S&P 500 pared gains after New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio warned the city could experience a "full shutdown" soon.
Stocks rose on Monday as Wall Street tried to rebound from a losing week. Investors were optimistic as the COVID-19 vaccine rollout began and Washington appeared a bit closer to hatching some sort of stimulus this week.
A bipartisan stimulus plan could be introduced in Congress as soon as Monday, but split into two parts in order to improve its chances of approval. The $908-billion bipartisan plan would be split into a $748-billion measure with money for jobless and small business and another part that includes the controversial measures including liability protections and state aid
Following the Food and Drug Administration’s emergency authorization of Pfizer’s vaccine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield signed off on the drug, allowing inoculations officially to move forward for people ages 16 or older.
The U.S. has begun to ship the doses from a Pfizer facility in Michigan to hundreds of distribution centers across the country. The FDA is also slated to publish its assessment on Moderna’s vaccine this week. The first dose of the vaccine was administered in New York state earlier on Monday.
The COVID-19 vaccine is being rolled out amid some of the darkest days of the pandemic in the U.S. More than 2,300 coronavirus related deaths were recorded Saturday, following over 3,300 deaths Friday. New infections continue to explode, with more than 219,000 cases reported on Saturday.
The Federal Reserve kicks off its two-day policy meeting on Tuesday, the central bank’s final meeting of 2020. Economists have speculated that the Fed could make changes to its bond program. The Fed is currently buying at least $80 billion a month of Treasurys, and Fed officials have discussed what they could do to change that program at their last meeting.
Prices for the 10-Year Treasury dipped, raising yields to 0.90% from Friday’s 0.89%. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
Oil prices sank 33 cents to $46.24 U.S. a barrel.
Gold prices slid $16.40 to $1,827.30.
