Inauguration day seems to have went quite well for the stock market in New York with all three major exchanges reporting improvements. The Dow Jones rose 0.83% to close at 31,188.38. The NASDAQ rose 1.97% to close at 13,457.25 and the S&P 500 rose 1.39% to close at 3,851.85.
Stocks rose to record highs with the inauguration, with all time-highs for intra-day and end of day. This seems to have moved the market ever higher. However, the expectation of another poor jobless report tomorrow just might temper some of the benefits that we’ve seen. It’s expected that there will be nearly 1 million new applicants for unemployment benefits, which is less than the week prior but still an exceedingly high amount. The number of claims that have been in effect for at least two weeks is expected to rise.
“The real question is what happens for the rest of Q1,” Krishna Memani, chief investment officer of the Lafayette College Endowment, told Christine Romans on the CNN Business digital live show Markets Now. “It’s a reflation trade for now,” something that is common after economic downturns, but “whether that’s sustainable in 2022, 2023 remain the question,”
Several grocery chains (and more) are offering incentives for their employees to get the COVID vaccine. In fact, Lidl has offered $200 and flexible scheduling for workers to get the vaccine. Aldi, Dollar General, Trader Joe’s and Instacart have also offered incentives of some type so that their employees are more likely to get the vaccine as well. This is expected to encourage employees as well as offsetting some of the costs associated with getting the vaccine, such as taking time off of work, travel costs and even child care costs during the vaccine scheduled time.
Proctor & Gamble are seeing huge sales growth as shoppers are continuing to look for products in the home cleaning niche. In fact, their organic sales grew 8% over the last three months of the year and profits increased by 4% over the same period. They managed to drive their stock upwards by 1.5% over the pre-market trading after raising their outlook for the year. In their fabric and home care division specifically the brand saw organic sales up 12%.
Oil prices fell slightly today, coming in down 0.69% to close at $52.94 per barrel. Gold rose, however, by 0.26% to close at $1,871.30 per ounce. The treasury yield held steady today, with the 10 year yield at 1.10 and the 30 year yield at 1.84.
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