Stock Market Update

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market is under selling pressure again and some upside moves of late. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.8%), S&P 500 (-1.1%), and Nasdaq Composite (-1.5%) are near session lows.

Increased geopolitical tensions have contributed to the downside bias after reports of an Israeli airstrike on Gaza. Participants are also waiting for any market-moving news related to President Trump and President Putin call today to discuss ending the war in Ukraine.

Losses in the mega cap space have an outsized impact on index performance. Alphabet (GOOG 161.61, -4.98, -3.0%), which announced a $32 billion cash acquisition of Wiz, Inc., a cloud security platform company, and NVIDIA (NVDA 118.33, -1.19, -1.0%), which is holding its GTC developers conference, are key laggards in that respect.

The aforementioned names, along with other mega caps, have pinned their respective S&P 500 sectors in last place on the leaderboard among the 11 sectors. The communication services (-2.6%), consumer discretionary (-1.9%), and information technology (-1.2%) sectors are the worst performers.

This morning's economic releases didn't garner a big response from equities or bonds. Housing starts and building permits reflected a boost in starts activity related to better weather conditions, yet the import and export prices reflected an inflationary shift in the year-over-year readings. 

The 10-yr yield is down two basis points to 4.29% and the 2-yr yield is down two basis points to 4.03%.

Reviewing today's economic data:

• February Housing Starts 1.501 mln (Briefing.com consensus 1.385 mln); Prior was revised to 1.350 mln from 1.366 mln, February Building Permits 1.456 mln (Briefing.com consensus 1.450 mln); Prior was revised to 1.473 mln from 1.483 mln
  • The key takeaway from the report is that starts activity was bolstered by the return of better weather, which was reflected in the 18.3% increase in housing starts in the South region (they were down 23.0% in January).
• February Export Prices 0.1%; Prior 1.3%
• February Export Prices ex-ag. 0.1%; Prior 1.5%
• February Import Prices 0.4%; Prior was revised to 0.4% from 0.3%
• February Import Prices ex-oil 0.3%; Prior 0.1%
• February Industrial Production 0.7% (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%); Prior was revised to 0.3% from 0.5%, February Capacity Utilization 78.2% (Briefing.com consensus 77.7%); Prior was revised to 77.7% from 77.8%
  • The key takeaway from the report is that there was a solid increase in manufacturing output that was led by an 8.5% jump in the index for motor vehicles and parts, which likely had some tariff frontrunning involved. Motor vehicle assemblies increased 11.5% month-over-month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 10.35 million.