The Dow Jones Industrial Average bounced between red and green today, but it closed the day as a winner. Specifically, the DJIA closed up by less than a percent on an otherwise pleasant day in the markets.
What’s going on with the Dow Jones today?
As the Nasdaq Composite celebrates a more than 1.5% gain and the S&P 500 a 0.6% jump, the Dow 30 is lagging slightly behind its peers at 0.15% after a volatile day. No stranger to the red, the DJIA dropped below yesterday’s close for much of the trading session.
Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) was the Dow’s best performer this hump day. Although still down 30% year-to-date (YTD), CRM stock gained 5% today. On the flip side, UnitedHealth (NYSE:UNH) couldn’t shake the bears, falling roughly 3%.
UNH stock likely fell in response to an earnings call miss from fellow health benefits company Elevance Health (NYSE:ELV). ELV closed down by nearly 8% today after reporting falling net income, despite managing to beat consensus earnings per share (EPS) estimates. Overall, the entire health sector had a shaky day following Elevance’s lukewarm results.
Dow Jones Crawls as Nasdaq, S&P Soar
Despite the Dow’s struggles, today was generally positive for equity markets. After solid earnings performances from Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) and Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), investors were happy to jump into other stock favorites.
In particular, tech stocks were the star of the show, reflected in the strong performance of the tech-centric Nasdaq. Enterprise software company Atlassian (NASDAQ:TEAM) proved the big winner, logging an 11% close after Bernstein analyst Peter Weed set a $257 price target and an “outperform” rating on shares.
Of the blue chip stocks, long-time leaders Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Disney (NYSE:DIS) each did well, too. They climbed roughly 1.4% and 3.7%, respectively.
As a whole, this past week has been quietly solid for stocks. Even as inflation fears swell and recession rumors swirl, the S&P 500 is up more than 4% for the past five trading days. Whether these recent uptrends are a sign of things to come or a flash in the pan remains to be seen.
On the date of publication, Shrey Dua did not hold (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.
