Stocks rose slightly on Tuesday as a deadline for a new fiscal stimulus deal from Washington approached.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average traded 176 points higher, or 0.6%. The S&P 500 gained 0.7% and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.6%.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin “continued to narrow their differences” in a Monday afternoon phone call to discuss another stimulus package, according to Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill. The speaker said that Tuesday is the deadline to reach an agreement before the Nov. 3 election.
“Over the next 24 hours … arguably the most important issue to watch for is a resolution on fiscal stimulus,” said Tom Lee, founder and head of research at Fundstrat Global Advisors, in a note. “While markets might see this as less significant (since a deal is likely post-election day), it is a big deal for those Americans with expiring benefits. So, we think it is very important for Washington to get a deal done.”
Stimulus negotiations have hung over the market for months after the main provisions from the CARES Act expired at the end of July. Since then, job growth has slowed but consumer spending has continued to recover. However, some indicators have shown that savings built up by the massive economic relief package are starting to run out.
House Democrats have passed two additional relief bills that found no traction in the Republican-controlled Senate, which is moving to vote on a $500 billion targeted relief package later this week. The most recent bill from House Democrats was $2.2 trillion, while the counteroffers from the White House have crept up to about $1.9 trillion in recent weeks.
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) participates in a news conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, October 1, 2020.
Erin Scott | Reuters
Andrew Smith, the chief investment strategist at Delos Capital Advisors, said that failing to pass a stimulus deal this week would not send the economy back into a recession but would miss a chance to make the recovery more smooth.
“We don’t believe that the new business cycle necessarily will be deterred if a stimulus deal doesn’t get done, but we do believe, if a stimulus deal on the fiscal side gets done, that will help propel the economy into that new business cycle a lot quicker than what we expect so far,” Smith said.
Stocks also rose after the Moderna CEO told the Wall Street Journal that the company’s coronavirus vaccine could be available for emergency use in December if it gets positive results from its interim trial in November.
Shares of Carnival Corp. and American Airlines rose 1.3% and 0.8%, respectively. Procter & Gamble shares climbed 2% after the company reported sales growth of 9% for the previous quarter. The company’s earnings per share also topped analyst expectations.
Travelers, another Dow component, jumped 3.3% on the back of better-than-expected quarterly results. The company posted a profit of $3.12 per share on revenue of $7.77 billion. Analysts polled by Refinitiv expected earnings of $3.03 per share on sales of $7.55 billion.
The stock market suffered a broad decline during Monday’s session, with the major averages dropping more than 1% each. All 11 S&P sectors finished in the red. The slump marked the fourth down day in five for the Dow and the S&P 500, while it was the fifth-straight negative session for the tech-heavy Nasdaq.
—CNBC’s Eustance Huang contributed to this report.
