Yahoo Finance Stocks - Wall Street Back in Risk-On Mode at Opening
By Geoffrey Smith
Investing.com -- Wall Street returned to risk-on mode at the opening of trade on Wednesday, shrugging off the growth concerns triggered by Apple’s warning over the impact of the Covid-19 outbreak.
Stronger-than-expected data from the housing market in January continued to support sentiment, while the market was largely unconcerned by a sharp rise in producer prices that drove annual factory gate inflation to its highest level since May.
By 9:45 AM ET (1445 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average had added 91 points, or 0.3%, to stand at 29,323 points. The S&P 500 index was up 0.4% and the Nasdaq Composite was up 0.7%.
Among the biggest gainers was, again, Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) stock, which rose 6.7% to a new high of $916, after analysts at Piper Sandler raised their target price to $928, citing the commercial potential of its electricity generation and storage businesses.
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) rose 0.6%, making good around one-third of the losses that it made on Tuesday after warning that it wouldn’t meet its revenue target of $63 to $67 billion in the first three months of this year.
Hydrogen fuel cell company Plug Power (NASDAQ:PLUG) continued to ride a wave of hot money flowing into alternative energy stocks, rising 4.6%, while Virgin Galactic (NYSE:SPCE) continued its parabolic trajectory, also fueled overwhelmingly by retail investors in search of the next big thing.
Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas, who has an “overweight” rating on Virgin Galactic, cautioned in a note on Tuesday that the recent surge has been “driven by forces beyond fundamental factors.”
“We are very constructive on the Virgin Galactic story ... We just think the share price could use a breather,” Jonas wrote, maintaining his $22 price target.
Elsewhere, the dollar index rose further to a new three-month high of 99.61, while gold futures also hit a seven-year high before retreating slightly to $1,607.25 a troy ounce. U.S. crude futures, meanwhile, rose 1.2% to $52.94 a barrel.
- Reuters contributed to this report
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