US Dow, S&P 500 hits new highs

The US stocks were mostly higher on Friday, 13 August 2021, with the Dow and the S&P500 indexes scaled new record closing high, boosted by signs of cooling inflation and a strong recovery in corporate earnings. While topside was marginal amid concerns about the impact of surging cases of the Delta variant of the coronavirus on growth.

At the close of trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average index advanced 15.53 points, or 0.04%, to 35,515.38. The S&P 500 index added 7.17 points, or 0.16%, to 4,468. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index was up 6.64 points, or 0.04%, to 14,822.90. For the week, the Dow gained about 0.9% and the S&P 500 added 0.7%, while the Nasdaq edged down 0.1%.

Total 7 of 11 S&P500 sectors advanced, while 4 sectors declined. Consumer staples (up 0.81%) sector was top performer, followed by Real estate (up 0.68%), Healthcare (up 0.6%), and utilities (up 0.56%) sectors, while energy (down 1.28%) sector was worst performer, followed by financials (down 0.73%) and industrials (down 0.32%) sectors.

Total volume turnover on U.S. exchanges was 6.17 billion shares, down from previous session volume of 7.72 billion shares. In the NYSE exchange, 1570 issues advanced, 1722 issues declined, and 171 issues closed unchanged. In the NASDAQ, 1550 issues advanced, 2838 issues declined, and 234 issues unchanged.

Top five advancing stocks were GreenVision Acquisition Corp (up 59.09%), PharmaCyte Biotech Inc (up 43.42%), Flora Growth Corp (up 35.97%), CVD Equipment Corp (up 24.63%), and Iridex Corp (up 20.91%), while bottom five declining stocks included Sesen Bio Inc (down 57%), SOC Telemed Inc (down 33.73%), Duos Technologies Group Inc (down 28.55%), Honest Co. Inc (down 28.33%), and Longeveron Inc (down 27.91%).

Market scaled new closing high, as risk sentiments underpinned as stellar earnings season, improving economic data and the Senate's passage of a large infrastructure bill have all reinforced investors' belief in the economic recovery. Concerns over higher inflation and a sooner-than-anticipated policy tapering by the Federal Reserve also ebbed after data earlier this week showed the pace of increase in U.S. consumer prices slowed in July.

Walt Disney shares closed higher on better-than-expected quarterly earnings and a strong growth of its customer base.

DoorDash shares close with a gain of about 3.5% despite reporting wider second-quarter loss.

ECONOMIC NEWS: The University of Michigan's preliminary report said U.S. consumer sentiment slumped to 70.2 in August 2021, from 81.2 in the previous month.

Data from the Labor Department showed U.S. import prices rose by 0.3% in July after surging up by a revised 1.1% in June. Meanwhile, the Labor Department said export prices shot up by 1.3% in July following a 1.2% leap in the previous month.

Among Indian ADR, INFOSYS rose 1.33% to $23.63, Wipro added 1.84% to $8.86, Vedanta added 1.03% to $17.63, WNS Holdings added 0.78% to $83.14, and HDFC Bank rose 1.98% to $76.59. ICICI Bank slid 0.31% to $19.36 and Dr Reddys Labs fell 0.78% to $62.71. Tata Motors closed steady at $20.50.

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