Dow Jones Rallies 0.7% as Walmart, Home Depot Earning Lift Retail Sector

Wall Street is mixed as retailers rise on strong earnings and growth stocks decline on an increase in yield.

On Tuesday, US equity markets were mixed as strong earnings from major retailers and better-than-anticipated growth in the US Industrial Production in July lifted stocks that are sensitive to opinions about the state of the US economy, but a subsequent increase in US bond yields hurt rate-sensitive big tech/growth names. As a consequence, after reaching new multi-month highs over 13,700 earlier in the session, the Nasdaq 100 index was last down about 0.3%, while the Dow Jones was last up about 0.7% after reaching its best levels since mid-April in the 34,200s.

After reaching its best levels since mid-April at 4,325 earlier in the session, the S&P 500 index encountered resistance around its 200-Day Moving Average at 4,326 and was last trading almost flat on the day at the 4,300 mark. The S&P 500 is now trading almost 18% higher than its yearly lows in the 3,600s set back in June. The main US index last reached its 200DMA back on April 21.

This year's inflation surge has peaked and should now ease, evidence that the US is holding up better than expected in the face of extreme price pressures, and earnings that have held up better than expected, as most recently demonstrated by Walmart and Home Depot, have all contributed to the recent run higher. In other words, there is growing hope that the US economy will have a "soft landing," in which the Fed manages to reduce inflation without raising interest rates too high and causing a downturn.

Home Depot jumps 4.1%, while Walmart increases 5.5%

The stock prices of two of the biggest US retailers, Walmart and Home Depot, increased on Tuesday after both companies reported profit figures that were stronger than anticipated before the start of US trading. Given that the business had just recently issued a profit warning, Walmart's downward adjustment to its new full-year profit prediction wasn't as awful as anticipated. Although store traffic was down and prices were up, Home Depot nonetheless outperformed top-line profits forecasts.

Lowe's, Target, TJX Companies, and Kroger were all able to record strong intra-day gains thanks to Walmart and Home Depot's strong results. As a result, the S&P 500 GICS Consumer Staples and Consumer Discretionary sectors had increases of 1.2% and 0.9%, respectively, making them the top performers. Information technology saw a decline of 0.6%, followed by communication services (-0.3%), health care (-0.4%), energy (-0.4%), and real estate (-0.5%).

Regarding some of the well-known brands, Tesla fell closer to 1.0% while Alphabet, Apple, and Microsoft all fell by 0.5%. Due to the positive outlook for the retail industry, Amazon almost increased by 1.0%.