September 21 through September 25, 2020
Euro Trader P. M4
Emerging Markets P. M4
Striking Price P. M5
Commodities P. M6
Inside Scoop P. M7
13D Filings P. M7
Power Play P. M7
Charting the Market P. M8
Winners & Losers P. M9
Research Reports P. M10
Market View P. M11
Statistics P. M12
27,173.96
52-wk:+1.32%YTD:-4.78%Wkly:-1.75%
Dow Jones Industrials
3298.46
S&P 500
52-wk:+11.37%YTD:+2.09%Wkly:-0.63%
10,913.56
Nasdaq Composite
52-wk:+37.46%YTD:+21.63%Wkly:+1.11%
1474.91
Russell 2000
52-wk:-3.00%YTD:-11.60%Wkly:-4.03%
4%
-6
-8
-4
-2
2
0
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Close
Source: Barron’s StatisticsFriday
MARKET PERFORMANCE DASHBOARD
Bad News
Dwindling fiscal stimulus hopes and rising
coronaviruscasesinEuropeandpartsofthe
U.S.hitthemarket.All11sectorsofthe
S&P500closeddown.
Snapback
TheS&P500andNasdaqCompositeboth
snapped four-day losing streaks as Federal
ReserveChairmanJeromePowellspoke
before Congress.
Reversal
Stockindexesopenedinthegreenon
Wednesday, before spending the rest of the
sessionmovinginonedirection:down.
Wavering
Stocks jumped between positive and
negativeterritoryonThursdayonabusyday
forFedspeak.Themessage:Fiscal
stimulus required.
THE TRADER
Investors’
Real Worry:
ANewWave
Of Covid-19
Infections
T
he stock market
lived to fight an-
other day.
Yes, it was an-
other losing week.
The S&P 500 fell
0.6% to 3298.46, its
fourth consecutive week of losses,
while the Dow Jones Industrial Av-
erage dropped 483.46 points, or 1.7%,
to 27,173.96, and the small-company
Russell 2000 slumped 4% to 1474.91.
Only the Nasdaq Composite ,up1.1%
at 10,913.56, managed to escape the
week with gain.
That right there tells you every-
thing you need to know. In a week
filled with headlines about govern-
ment stimulus (or the lack thereof),
Supreme Court nominations, and the
election, the gain in the Nasdaq—
home to stay-at-home stocks such as
eBay (ticker: EBAY), PayPal (PYPL),
and Nvidia (NVDA)—suggests that it
was the fear of another Covid-19 wave
that really got the market down.
And for good reason. The week
began with the U.K. talking about a
second shutdown and ended with all
of Europe facing down a second wave
of infection as France reported its
highest number of daily cases and
other countries reported spikes as
well. In the U.S., the number of cases
is rising and the death toll passed
200,000 midweek, leading to the pos-
sibility of new shutdowns and sending
investors scurrying for safe-haven
stocks over recovery plays. Ama-
zon.com (AMZN) finished the week
up 4.8%, Apple (AAPL) finished up
5.1%, and Microsoft (MSFT) closed
up 3.7%, while recovery plays Dow
(DOW) fell 8.6% on the week and
Chevron (CVX) dropped 8.2%.
“Stay-at-home stocks are leading,
and economic-recovery stocks are get-
ting clobbered,” says Dave Donabedian,
chief investment officer at CIBC Private
Wealth Management. “There’s some
repositioning going on here that says
there will be a pullback in the economy,
at least in the short term.”
But repositioning is far different
than selling in bulk. Sebastien Galy,
senior macro strategist at Nordea As-
set management, observes that with so
many megacap stocks sitting near key
price support levels, a break lower
could have caused everyone from indi-
By Ben Levisohn