Markets staged a comeback on Tuesday, with all three major averages up more than 1% as investors weighed news of federal involvement to mitigate Omicron and imminent authorization of an at-home Covid-19 treatment.
In a turnaround from earlier losses, the Dow rallied more than 500 points during intraday trading, up 1.46%, while the S&P gained 1.49% in a 225-point jump. The Nasdaq Composite also extended gains of 1.29%.
The moves come after traders weigh news the White House will deploy 1,000 military personnel to hospitals as Omicron cases rise and purchase 500 million at-home COVID-19 tests that will be available for Americans to buy.
The FDA is also expected to authorize at-home treatment pills for the virus from Pfizer (PFE) and Merck (MRK). Shares of Pfizer were down 4.02% at $58.56 a piece, while Merck traded at $75.67 per share, down 0.97%.
"On the virus side, ultimately what we've seen with prior surges and prior variants is that market sell-offs tend to be somewhat contained to a period of time, so we do expect that as we get better and better at dealing with some of these challenges from the economic and market perspective, things will likely settle down despite some of the public health challenges we have ahead," Meera Pandit, a global market strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management told Yahoo Finance Live.
With virus fears triggering more restrictions and cancellations, concerns around Omicron's spread weigh on traders still reeling from the Federal Reserve's hawkish shift last week to more quickly withdraw monetary support and boost forecasts for rate hikes next year.
To add to their plate, investors are also processing an unexpected blow to Biden's economic agenda after Senator Joe Manchin (D., W. Va.) quashed the administration's long-deliberated Build Back Better Act, citing concerns about inflation, the national debt and ongoing pandemic in an interview on Fox News Sunday.
The news sent solar energy and electric vehicle stocks plummeting in a sell-off that placed Tesla (TSLA) below $900 for the first time since October. The stock closed down 3.5% at $899.94.
"When we think about Build Back Better, we are likely to face a fiscal cliff regardless last year with less fiscal spending than we've seen over the last two years," Pandit also told Yahoo Finance Live. "But the Build Back Better bill was expected to be phased in over a number of years, so while it will be somewhat of a headwind for growth, I think it's right now very much an indication of sentiment more than anything."
Even with a holiday-shortened week of trading, investors are tuning into a packed economic release schedule. The Conference Board is set to release its latest consumer confidence index on Wednesday, expected to show an only modest uptick for the month of December.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis will also publish fresh prints on Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Thursday, a key measure of price changes in the economy. Consensus data compiled by Bloomberg showed PCE is projected to climb at a 0.6% month-over-month rate in November.
The new inflation data will be a central focus among investors in the coming days.
"There's a number of headwinds coming at us now," Oxbow Advisors managing partner Ted Oakley told Yahoo Finance Live. He said investors are pricing in "peak hawkishness" from the Federal Reserve and inflation.
"Lastly, you just had such a speculative market that it's easy for it to start getting some selling," he added.
Here's how stocks were trading during the midday session as of 12:35 p.m. ET:
S&P 500 (^GSPC): +62.64 (+1.37%) to 4,630.66
Dow (^DJI): +531.68 (+1.52%) to 35,463.84
Nasdaq (^IXIC): +235.50 (+1.57%) to 15,216.44
Crude (CL=F): +$2.57 (+3.75%) to $71.18 a barrel
Gold (GC=F): -$7.30 (-0.41%) to $1,787.30 per ounce
10-year Treasury (^TNX): +6.5 bps to yield 1.4840%
-
AT&T (T) has agreed to sell its Xandr global advertising platform to Microsoft (MSFT). The telecom giant said in an announcement of the deal Tuesday that Xandr's technology "strategically complements Microsoft's current advertising offerings." Further details about the acquisition were not immediately disclosed.
The move comes amid investor concerns that AT&T was struggling to pay off its debt after the firm poured billions into becoming a one-stop-shop media company, satellite TV provider and advertising platform. Xandr was created under former AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson following the $1.6 billion purchase of advertising company AppNexus in 2018.
Shares of AT&T were up 2.07% in early trading to $24.69 a piece, while Microsoft traded at $320.05 per share, up 0.04%.
-
Shares of Micron Technology (MU) climbed after the maker of memory chips surpassed analyst estimates for second-quarter sales. The company is anticipating chip shortages will ease in the second half of 2022 and businesses are positioned to rebound.
The stock ticked up as much as 9.5%, posting its biggest intraday percentage gain since April 2020, according to Bloomberg. Shares traded at $88.80 a piece in the early session, up 8.25% after market open.
Micron is "a compellingly growth at a reasonable price (GARP) beneficiary of secular data center, 5G, metaverse, auto trends and a catch-up candidate after underperforming" BMO Capital Markets wrote.
-
Here were the main moves in markets as of 9:30 a.m. ET:
S&P 500 (^GSPC): +39.48 (+0.86%) to 4,607.50
Dow (^DJI): +299.00 (+0.86%) to 35,231.16
Nasdaq (^IXIC): +153.45 (+1.02%) to 15,134.40
Crude (CL=F): +$1.77 (+2.58%) to $70.38 a barrel
Gold (GC=F): +$0.40 (+0.02%) to $1,795.00 per ounce
10-year Treasury (^TNX): +5.1 bps to yield 1.4700%
-
Here were the main moves in markets ahead of Tuesday's open:
S&P 500 futures (ES=F): 45 points (+0.99%), to 4,603.50
Dow futures (YM=F): 319 points (+0.92%), to 35,132.00
Nasdaq futures (NQ=F): 176.5 points (+1.13%) to 15,798.00
-
Here were the main moves ahead of the overnight trading session:
S&P 500 futures (ES=F): 13.75 points (+0.30%), to 4,572.25
Dow futures (YM=F): 102 points (+0.29%), to 34,915.00
Nasdaq futures (NQ=F): 69.75 points (+0.45%) to 15,691.00
-
Alexandra Semenova is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter @alexandraandnyc
Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance
Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Flipboard, and LinkedIn