Stock market news live updates: Stocks soar for second straight day as October relief rally intensifies

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U.S. stocks charged sharply higher Tuesday as Wall Street built on momentum from a broad market rally that kicked off the month and quarter earlier this week.

[Click here to read what's moving markets on Wednesday, Oct. 5]

The benchmark S&P 500 surged 3%, its largest two-day climb since April 2020 — with the strongest daily breadth reading since late 2018, per data from Bespoke Investment Group. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 826 points, or 2.8%, for its second straight day of gains of more than 700 points. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite soared 3.2%.

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All eyes were on Elon Musk's charade with Twitter (TWTR) Tuesday after Bloomberg reported the Tesla (TSLA) CEO agreed to move forward with his $44 billion deal to buy the social media platform. Shares of Twitter spiked 12% immediately following the news before trading was temporarily halted — and they closed up over 22% after trading resumed. Musk confidentially filed a letter with the Delaware Chancery Court Monday night to proceed with the acquisition, days before he was expected to be deposed as part of Twitter's lawsuit.

"We received the letter from the Musk parties which they have filed with the SEC," Twitter said in a statement Tuesday afternoon. "The intention of the company is to close the transaction at $54.20 per share."

As stocks soared broadly, investors cheered on a fresh labor market reading that showed U.S. job openings slid by the most in nearly two and a half years in August — a welcome sign for Federal Reserve officials trying to tamp down outsized labor demand in the fight against inflation. The Labor Department said in its monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) that job openings dropped 1.1 million to 10.1 million on the last business day of August.

Bonds rallied alongside stocks on Tuesday, with Treasury yields falling for a second straight day. The benchmark U.S. 10-year note tumbled to around 3.6% after topping a 2008 high of 4% last week. The U.S. dollar index also fell lower.

Equity markets kicked off the month on a high note Monday after an ugly September for the major averages. During the previous session, the S&P 500 soared 2.6% in its best day since July, the Dow rose 2.7% to mark its largest one-day gain since June, and the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite gained 2.3%.

Nicholas Colas of DataTrek Research points out that the S&P 500 rarely rallies by over 2% in non-stressed market conditions, suggesting that Monday’s bounce was a sign of “fragility, not strength.” Between 2013 and 2019, for example, there were fewer than four such days in every year, while 2022 has had 14 so far.