Wall Street News: Banking Sector May Pressure The Dollar
First quarter results from the banking sector lifted stocks globally on Thursday, and allowed Wall Street to finish in the green for a second session. Equity selling pressured Treasury notes and allowed oil to finish at the high of the day.
On Thursday the NYSE posted a second day of gains with on average 3.5% returns from the opening prices. The DOW was on 8083 after a gain of 246 points (3%) while the S&P traded at 856, higher by 3.8%. and the technology-heavy NASDAQ traded at 1650 area, after moving up over 60 points (3.9%).
Financial Sector:
On Thursday, the XLF financial sector ETF gained 1.41 points (15%) to trade at 10.61 on massive volume; 285,000,000 ETF's changed hands against a rising daily average of 230,000,000. The banking sector lifted by news that Wells Fargo had beat earnings estimates in the first quarter, and that really was all it took for the markets to lift off and head higher. The Dax, FTSE, and Cac 40 all gained in a synchronized move higher in early trade, and never looked back.
Commodities:
Treasuries fell as traders made the move to riskier assets from bonds, and followed the path of least resistance on the day and moved note values lower and yields higher as the markets suddenly started to question the reason why 0.9% was enough to hold notes if equities were able to move higher. The Fed sold a record number of new-issue notes this week, and created a mass of dollar backed Treasuries for the market to absorb. The 10 year Treasury yield rose to 2.93%, up 7 basis points on the day, something that allowed the dollar to gain on the Swiss franc and yen.
Crude for April delivery was pushing into major resistance at $52.00, up 5.3% on the day with a $2.65 gain.
Gold for April delivery was recently trading down $6.80 (-0.8%) at $880 per ounce.