MARKET WEEK
February 15 through February 19, 2021
Charting the Market P. M8
Euro Trader P. M4
Emerging Markets P. M4
Commodities P. M6
Striking Price P. M5
Power Play P. M7
Market View P. M11
Winners & Losers P. M9
13D Filings P. M7
Research Reports P. M10
Statistics P. M13
31,494.32
52-wk:+8.63%YTD:+2.90%Wkly:+0.11%
Dow Jones Industrials
3906.71
S&P 500
52-wk:+17.05%YTD:+4.01%Wkly:-0.71%
13,874.46
Nasdaq Composite
52-wk:+44.88%YTD:+7.65%Wkly:-1.57%
1.34%
Ten-Year Treasury Yield
52-wk:-8.84%YTD:+47.25%Wkly:+11.67%
7.5%
-2.5
-5.0
2.5
0
5.0
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Source: Barron’s Statistics
MARKET PERFORMANCE DASHBOARD
PRESIDENTS DAY
MARKETS CLOSED
Rotation Play
Optimism over Covid-19 data and fiscal stimulus
boosted cyclical stocks and assets on Tuesday.
S&P500energysharesadded2.6%,while
defensive utilities fell 1.1%.
Spending Again
Afterthreemonthsofdeclines,retailspendingrose5.3%
in January. The 10-year Treasury yield held near 12-month
highsWednesday,whilestockindexesweremixed.
Another Retreat
Growthareasofthemarketpulledbackon
Thursdayasinvestorsandcommentators
focused on rising bond yields. The Nasdaq
Composite lost 0.7%.
Struggling Higher
The10-yearyieldclosedthe
week 0.15 percentage point higher
thanitstartedit,at1.34%.The
DJIAekedoutaslightweeklygain.
THE TRADER
This Bull
Market Still
Shows No
Sign of
Ending
T
he economic data
this past week
largely underscored
the market’s appar-
ent conviction that
a rapid recovery is
under way. Cyclical
equities rose, bonds fell, and investors
wrung their hands about higher yields
threatening the stock market.
January retail sales jumped 5.3%
from December and 7.4% from a year
earlier, handily beating expectations—
and the January producer-price index
likewise surprised to the upside.
Thursday morning’s initial jobless-
claims figures for the latest week broke
a several-week trend of declines, while
the prior week’s tally was revised
higher. But then, on Friday, February
PMIs from IHS Markit decidedly con-
firmed the health of the recovery: The
manufacturing subindex held just be-
low its recent peak, while the services
component hit a six-year high.
The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow model
now points to real gross-domestic-
product growth at a whopping 9.5%
annualized rate in the first quarter. It
had been below 5% just 10 days ear-
lier, and it comes before any boost
from a $1.9 trillion stimulus package.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average
rose 35.92 points, or 0.11%, to 31,494.32
this past week. The S&P 500 slipped
0.71%, to 3906.71, and the Nasdaq
Composite lost 1.57%, to 13,874.46. The
yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury
note, meanwhile, ticked up 0.145 per-
centage point, to 1.344%, as the price of
the securities fell. Indexes near record
highs and rising yields has been the
basic dynamic since late last year.
“The market is painting a picture of
optimism: strong growth and rising,
but not troublesome, inflation. We
agree,” BofA Securities U.S. economist
Michelle Meyer—who sees GDP grow-
ing by 6% in 2021—wrote on Friday.
“But there is a delicate balance: Strong
growth could prompt a faster rise in
rates, driving up borrowing costs and
weighing on risky assets, limiting up-
side to economic growth.”
That “delicate balance” means inves-
tors may soon be playing the kind of
mind games many will remember from
the first half of 2019. Back then, good
economic data wasn’t always good
news for the stock market, because it
By Nicholas
Jasinski
