S&P 500, Nasdaq gain as Nvidia leads megacap growth stocks higher

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq rose on Monday as chipmaker Nvidia spearheaded gains among megacap growth stocks while investors also awaited earning reports from U.S. retail giants and economic data later in the week.

Shares of Nvidia rose 5.4%, pushing the information technology index up 1.4% at the top of the S&P 500 sectoral gainers.

Other megacap growth stocks including Alphabet and Amazon.com also rose over 1%, while chipmaker Micron Technology gained 4.9%.

“It’s the first day in a while that tech has really significantly outperformed. I think that’s indicative of the fact that you have this blockbuster Nvidia report coming up and that could support the tech market pretty substantially,” said Jay Hatfield, CEO of Infrastructure Capital Advisors in New York.

Nvidia, which has been at the center of an AI-driven rally in tech stocks this year, is due to report quarterly results next week. Morgan Stanley on Monday named the company as its top pick.

“People are trying to get ahead of earnings because if you remember last quarter, the results were so far outside the realm of what anyone was expecting,” said Thomas Hayes, chairman at Great Hill Capital LLC.

Tesla bucked the trend, falling 2.2% after the electric automaker said it had cut prices in China for some Model Y versions.

Market focus this week will be on quarterly earnings from major U.S. retailers including Walmart and Target. Economic data expected includes retail sales for July that will shape expectations for the direction for U.S. interest rates.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq lost ground in August after hotter-than-expected U.S. producer prices data last week drove up U.S. Treasury yields and weighed on rate-sensitive growth stocks.

Traders see a nearly 89% chance that the Fed will keep its interest rates unchanged next month, according to CME Group’s Fedwatch tool.

Keeping a lid on global market sentiment were concerns about China’s highly leveraged property sector after the country’s top private property developer, Country Garden, sought to delay payment on a private onshore bond for the first time.

At 12:05 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 17.88 points, or 0.05%, at 35,299.28, the S&P 500 was up 17.91 points, or 0.40%, at 4,481.96, and the Nasdaq Composite was up 93.52 points, or 0.69%, at 13,738.36.

PayPal Holdings added 2.2% after the company named Alex Chriss, a top executive at tax-preparation software firm Intuit, as its new chief executive officer.

AMC Entertainment common shares fell 34.1% after a Delaware judge approved the theater chain’s revised stockholder settlement on Friday. The company’s preferred stock rose 17.1%.

Hawaiian Electric Industries shares plunged nearly 40% to more than 13-year lows amid growing scrutiny over whether the utility company’s equipment played any role in the deadly wildfires that burnt through the coastal Maui town of Lahaina.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers for a 1.72-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and for a 1.51-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P index recorded seven new 52-week highs and nine new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 40 new highs and 158 new lows.

Source : Reuters