Stock Market Today Mid-Morning Updates
On Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 140 points. This comes as global markets rallied, adding to Monday’s surge. Energy and economic recovery stocks were among today’s gainers. For instance, Halliburton (NYSE: HAL) shares are up by over 6.46% today as crude prices rose and Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) upgraded the oil services company.
Following that, investor confidence in the markets do seem to be unwavering, even as the U.S. reported a record number of over 1 million new infections yesterday. Automobile titan Ford (NYSE: F) was reported to be one of the auto industry’s top growth stocks in 2021, jumping by roughly 140% last year. Investors seem to have rewarded the new direction under auto veteran Jim Farley, who took the helm in October 2020. Notable achievements under Farley include the Ford+ restructuring plan.
Among the Dow Jones leaders, shares of Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) are up by 0.27% on Tuesday while Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is down by 0.35%. Home Depot (NYSE: HD) is trading on the upswing at 0.21% while Nike (NYSE: NKE) is also up by 0.67%
Shares of electric vehicle (EV) leader Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) are down by 0.39% on Tuesday. Rival EV companies like Rivian (NASDAQ: RIVN) are up 0.83% today. Lucid Group (NASDAQ: LCID) is down 1.61%. Also, Chinese EV leaders like Li Auto (NASDAQ: LI) and Xpeng Motors (NYSE: XPEV) are down after rallying from strong deliveries yesterday.
Manufacturing Data and Labor Department Report
Investors can finally assess key economic data on manufacturing and labor today as it continues to provide insight on the economic recovery from the coronavirus. This data will include the latest information on the Labor Department’s latest job openings and Manufacturing PMI
Diving in, job openings reached 10.6 million in November, holding near a record high amid the pandemic. This comes slightly lower than the 11.033 million in October, based on the government’s first estimate for the month. In contrast, economists were looking for job openings to rise to 11.079 million in November, according to Bloomberg data.
Economic activity in the manufacturing sector grew in December, with the overall economy achieving a 19th consecutive month of growth, say the nation’s supply executives in the latest Manufacturing ISM Report On Business. The December Manufacturing PMI registered 58.7%, a decrease of 2.4 percentage point from the November reading of 61.1%.
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Dow Jones Today: Treasury Yields
Following the stock market opening on Tuesday, the Dow, S&P 500 are trading 0.77% and 0.27% higher respectively. Meanwhile, Nasdaq is edging lower by 0.50%. Among exchange-traded funds, the Nasdaq 100 tracker Invesco QQQ Trust (NASDAQ: QQQ) ticked lower by 0.46% Tuesday, while the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSEARCA: SPY) rose 0.33%.
The markets also rallied on Monday’s treasury yields. In detail, U.S. government bond yields rose Monday to their highest levels since November to start 2022. It could be that returning traders continue to bet that the Omicron variant will not shift central bank policy for the months ahead. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note finished Monday’s session at 1.628%, according to Tradeweb.
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Ford Doubles F-150 EV Production Goals To Meet Surging Demand;
While existing EV players are making headlines with solid delivery figures, investors may want to note emerging names. Among these names now is automotive titan Ford. Notably, Ford’s clients and consumer markets, in general, seem to be receiving the company’s shift towards EVs well. So much so that Ford is planning to almost double production for its upcoming F-150 electric truck on “soaring” demand.
Overall, this is the current timeline for Ford’s production plans. Up until this point, the company was looking to manufacture 15,000 trucks in 2022, 55,000 in 2023, and 80,000 in 2024. However, thanks to the immensely positive response to its new EV, the company closed reservations back in December. Through the latest move, it is now aiming to boost its annual production capabilities to 150,000 F-150 trucks by mid-2023.
Chiefly, some would argue that the pace of Ford’s expansion is rather impressive. Likewise, the company’s shares are leading the automotive pack in the stock market now. Simply put, F stock is among the fastest-growing automotive stocks throughout 2021. This is evident as it skyrocketed by a whopping 140% throughout the year. According to Morgan Stanleyanalyst Adam Jones, 2021 was “truly a breakthrough year for Ford … easily the most important year strategically for the company since the financial crisis”. Accordingly, F stock seems to be in the spotlight today with gains of 6.29% since today’s opening bell.
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Apple Tops $3 Trillion Market Cap; What’s In-Stored For It This Year
It would not surprise me to see Applegaining traction in the stock market today. For the most part, this is likely thanks to hype around the company’s latest achievement. That is, being the first publicly traded firm to achieve a market cap of $3 trillion. In detail, AAPL stock hit an intraday high of 182.88 during yesterday’s trading session. As a result, the company’s market cap briefly topped the $3 trillion mark. Today, the AAPL stock is currently up by 0.27% and currently trades at $182.62 a piece.
By and large, all this serves to highlight Apple’s immense growth capabilities. For reference, the company crossed the $2 trillion valuation mark less than two years ago. Ideally, as consumers across the board continue to flock towards Apple, investors could be doing the same for AAPL stock. In fact, analysts now estimate that the company’s wireless earbuds, the AirPods, remain hot offerings in the market today. Namely, Apple reportedly sold 27 million pairs of its latest-gen AirPod over the holiday season. This brings its total for the quarter up to a whopping 90 million. Not to mention, there is also Apple’s ongoing efforts to further refine its operations and improve margins to consider.
All this alongside Apple’s supposed plans in the driverless vehicle and virtual reality markets gives investors plenty to digest. However you look at it, the company does not seem to have plans to slow down anytime soon. All in all, AAPL stock is hovering around its all-time high and is likely pulling investor interest today.
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