Stocks snapped their three-day losing streak Wednesday after the Treasury Department stepped in to stabilize the bond market. A big rally in healthcare stocks also helped support the broader market, though upside was contained as several mega-cap tech stocks struggled.
The Treasury Department this morning said it will “at least double” the size of its buybacks for government bonds, from $2 billion to a minimum of $4 billion. The increase will begin September 9 and run through November 4, and “reflects Treasury’s desire to provide greater liquidity support in longer-dated nominal sectors,” according to a press release.
“Long-term Treasury yields had been under upward pressure amid uncertainty in interest rates, inflation, and the growing federal deficit,” explains Tony Miano, global investment strategy analyst at Wealth & Investment Management at Wells Fargo.
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The news sent the 10-year Treasury yield down 6.7 basis points to 4.639%, while the 30-year Treasury yield, which hit a 19-year high earlier this week, plummeted 9.8 basis points to 5.187%.
But while the Treasury Department’s announcement provides short-term relief, Miana does not believe it changes the outlook for long-term yields. “The key drivers behind rising yields … remain in place,” he says. “Until investors gain greater clarity on those issues, risks to long-term Treasury yields remain skewed to the upside.”
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As for stocks, the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.2% to 53,463, the broader S&P 500 gained 0.2% to 7,707, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite added 0.2% to 26,331.
Merck, Moderna stocks soar on positive cancer drug data
Merck (MRK) was easily the best Dow Jones stock today, surging 12.6% — its best day since 2009 — after a new mRNA skin cancer treatment jointly developed by the drugmaker and Moderna (MRNA) met its goals in a late-stage study when paired with MRK’s Keytruda.
“This represents the first positive Phase 3 readout for an individualized neoantigen therapy (INT) and for an mRNA-based cancer therapy, as well as the first Phase 3 study to demonstrate a clinically meaningful improvement over KEYTRUDA alone, a standard-of-care immunotherapy, in the adjuvant setting for patients with resected melanoma,” Merck stated in a news release.
MRNA shares surged 177% today, marking the large-cap stock‘s biggest one-day gain ever. It’s also the first time since 2008 that an S&P 500 stock doubled in one day, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The news also lifted several vaccine makers, including Novovax (NVAX, +10.8%) and BioNTech (BNTX, +22.0%).
Target pops after earnings
Elsewhere on Wall Street, Target (TGT) jumped 4.4% after the retailer reported a beat-and-raise quarter.
TGT’s fiscal second-quarter earnings received a $1.65 per-share boost from tariff refunds, while its comparable store sales came in at a better-than-expected 3.8%.
“The headline for Target was in the increased traffic [that] led to a strong jump in same store comps,” says Brian Mulberry, chief market strategist at Zacks Investment Management. “These are metrics that they have needed to meet to demonstrate that their turnaround is working and operations are getting better.”
Mulberry adds that this is a “meaningfully positive quarter for Target,” but the retailer now needs “to show consistency and [that] this was not a one-off success.”
Marvell outperforms on Google news
While several mega-cap tech stocks, including Broadcom (AVGO, -4.6%) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD, -3.7%), closed lower Wednesday, Marvell Technology (MRVL) rose 9.9% after the chip designer expanded a deal with Alphabet’s (GOOGL, +0.2%) Google.
The agreement builds on a partnership between the two companies to build new custom artificial intelligence chips and gives Google the option to buy up to $12.2 billion in MRVL stock over time if it purchases large amounts of chips.
