By Liz Moyer
Investing.com -- Tech stocks weighed on markets Wednesday, dampening the Dow and pulling the Nasdaq down triple-digits.
Early enthusiasm about the reopening trade lifted travel stocks and cyclicals, but the momentum faded as the afternoon session moved closer to the closing bell.
It could be just a breather as stimulus checks continue to go out to qualifying individuals, something many expect could be spent on stocks or on discretionary items like restaurants and local businesses.
The Fed continued its mantra that it would support the economic recovery anyway it could, and that it wasn’t worried about inflation. The 10-year Treasury, which spiked over 1.7% last week, traded around 1.6% on Wednesday.
The weekly jobless claims data is due out Thursday morning, and the trend could confirm the idea that the recovery is spreading along with vaccinations and the easing of business restrictions.
Here are three things that could affect markets tomorrow:
1. Government says no cruises, yet
Cruise lines lost the wind in their sails (and sales) on Wednesday after the Centers for Disease Control said its no-sail order is in effect until November, dashing hopes that the government would move it back to July 1, as the industry had requested.
It’s been more than a year since cruise ships could leave from U.S. ports, and no-sail orders have forced operators to look to the Caribbean and other locations where business isn’t as restricted. Carnival (NYSE:CUK) Corporation (NYSE:CCL) fell nearly 2% on Wednesday and Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd (NYSE:RCL) fell 2.7%.
2. Viacom makes investors mad
ViacomCBS Inc (NASDAQ:VIAC)was already down 9% on Tuesday, but the shares plunged another 20% on Wednesday after the company priced a $3 billion share offering. The proceeds are supposed to be used to build its streaming operations, something Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) said was the right strategy but “hard to execute.”
After falling so far, investors might look to Viacom as a buy opportunity when markets reopen Thursday.
3. DigitalOcean debuts
The small-scale cloud infrastructure provider listed on the NYSE on Wednesday at $41.50 a share, which is actually 12% below its $47 IPO price in a twist on recent IPOs. They closed down 9.6% and were drifting lower in after-hours trading.
DigitalOcean Holdings Inc (NYSE:DOCN) competes with giants like Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) in the business of offering computing and storage to others so they don’t have to run their own data centers.