By Philip van Doorn
Amid the euphoria following what appeared to be the first sign of slowing inflation, stocks staged a broad rally on Aug. 10, with dozens of large-cap stocks rising 5% or more.
Those included several tech names that investors loved during the early stages of the coronvirus pandemic, along with cruise lines, credit-card lenders and chip-related companies.
A list of the day’s best performers among the S&P 500 Index /zigman2/quotes/210599714/realtime SPX +0.80% and the Nasdaq-100 Index /zigman2/quotes/210598364/realtime NDX +1.48% is below.
The S&P 500 rose 2.1% and is up 12% since its 2022 closing low on June 22. The benchmark index is still down 11.7% this year.
The strong showing followed a report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics saying the Consumer Price Index was unchanged in July from June after rising 1.3% in June from May, and decelerated to an annual 8.5% in July from 9.1% the previous month.
Greg Robb provided further analysis of what the better-than-expected inflation report might mean for interest rates when the Federal Open Market Committee has its next meeting Sept. 20-21, which will be followed by a decision on the fed funds rate and the Federal Reserve’s investment policy.
All 11 sectors of the S&P 500 were up for the day:
| Index | Price change – Aug. 10 | Price change since S&P 500 closing low June 22 | Price change – 2022 |
| Materials | 2.9% | 6.3% | -12.4% |
| Consumer Discretionary | 2.9% | 20.4% | -18.2% |
| Information Technology | 2.8% | 16.8% | -15.1% |
| Communication Services | 2.8% | 6.8% | -25.4% |
| Financials | 2.3% | 10.3% | -11.6% |
| Industrials | 2.2% | 13.3% | -7.6% |
| Real Estate | 1.4% | 12.0% | -13.3% |
| Health Care | 1.1% | 6.7% | -5.9% |
| Consumer Staples | 0.7% | 6.6% | -3.2% |
| Energy | 0.7% | 2.7% | 35.9% |
| Utilities | 0.5% | 13.8% | 5.4% |
| S&P 500 | 2.1% | 12.0% | -11.7% |
| Source: FactSet | |||
The Nasdaq-100 includes the largest 100 non-financial stocks in the full Nasdaq Composite Index /zigman2/quotes/210598365/realtime COMP +1.37% . When added to the S&P 500, the group expands to 518 stocks, 92% of which posted gains on Aug. 10.
Here are the day’s 20 best performers in this expanded large-cap group — many are still down by high double digits from their one-year highs:
| Company | Ticker | Price change – Aug. 10 | Price change since June 22 | Price change – 2022 | Decline from 52-week high | Date of 52-week intraday high |
| Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. | /zigman2/quotes/204183397/composite NCLH | 12.1% | 18.2% | -34.6% | -54.0% | 11/05/2021 |
| Zscaler Inc. | /zigman2/quotes/203585803/composite ZS | 10.4% | 21.0% | -43.9% | -52.0% | 11/19/2021 |
| Royal Caribbean Group | /zigman2/quotes/208854639/composite RCL | 9.8% | 13.6% | -45.8% | -57.6% | 11/08/2021 |
| Carnival Corp. | /zigman2/quotes/202325446/composite CCL | 9.2% | 7.5% | -48.6% | -62.2% | 09/27/2021 |
| SVB Financial Group | 7.7% | 13.0% | -33.3% | -40.7% | 11/16/2021 | |
| DocuSign Inc. | /zigman2/quotes/205992027/composite DOCU | 7.7% | 21.5% | -50.5% | -76.0% | 08/10/2021 |
| CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. Class A | /zigman2/quotes/212513426/composite CRWD | 7.5% | 21.2% | -1.9% | -32.7% | 11/10/2021 |
| Etsy Inc. | /zigman2/quotes/202790087/composite ETSY | 7.4% | 57.8% | -46.6% | -62.0% | 11/26/2021 |
| Datadog Inc Class A | /zigman2/quotes/214127379/composite DDOG | 7.3% | 29.3% | -33.9% | -41.0% | 11/17/2021 |
| Marvell Technology Inc. | /zigman2/quotes/200053236/composite MRVL | 7.3% | 18.5% | -37.1% | -41.4% | 12/08/2021 |
| MercadoLibre Inc. | /zigman2/quotes/200678442/composite MELI | 6.9% | 57.1% | -21.1% | -46.0% | 09/02/2021 |
| Teradyne Inc. | /zigman2/quotes/208321188/composite TER | 6.8% | 8.5% | -39.4% | -41.3% | 12/28/2021 |
| Qorvo Inc. | /zigman2/quotes/209919828/composite QRVO | 6.6% | 14.4% | -30.3% | -44.1% | 08/09/2021 |
| Zoom Video Communications Inc. Class A | /zigman2/quotes/211319643/composite ZM | 6.4% | -2.7% | -39.1% | -71.5% | 08/10/2021 |
| Generac Holdings Inc. | /zigman2/quotes/208144117/composite GNRC | 6.3% | 22.1% | -26.2% | -50.5% | 11/02/2021 |
| Netflix Inc. | /zigman2/quotes/202353025/composite NFLX | 6.2% | 36.5% | -59.5% | -65.2% | 11/17/2021 |
| Discover Financial Services | /zigman2/quotes/208747867/composite DFS | 6.0% | 14.8% | -6.6% | -20.4% | 08/13/2021 |
| Albemarle Corp. | /zigman2/quotes/200578017/composite ALB | 6.0% | 19.9% | 10.9% | -11.0% | 11/22/2021 |
| Capital One Financial Corp | /zigman2/quotes/204480509/composite COF | 6.0% | 6.7% | -22.3% | -36.6% | 08/13/2021 |
| Aptiv PLC | /zigman2/quotes/204162392/composite APTV | 5.9% | 15.8% | -36.1% | -41.7% | 11/04/2021 |
| Source: FactSet | ||||||
Click on the tickers for more about each company.
Click here for Tomi Kilgore’s detailed guide to the wealth of information for free on the MarketWatch quote page.
Despite all the good cheer among investors, economists at Pimco warned that core inflation might increase again in August, and BlackRock’s chief investment officer for global fixed income agreed with the Pimco economists that the Fed was still likely to increase the federal funds target range by another 0.75% in September.
Rex Nutting cautioned tha t one month of inflation data might not yet signal a trend because of the continuing increase in rents .
Read on: 10 defensive stocks that can also provide you with growth and dividends over the long term
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