The major averages are slightly lower at midday as bond yields rise with investors looking to Biden's latest spending plan and continuing to assess the fallout from the Archegos Capital Management implosion. The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield has continued its march higher, rising to 1.77% during the session to hit its highest level since the start of the pandemic just over a year ago.
ECONOMIC EVENTS: In the U.S., the Conference Board consumer confidence index surged 19.3 points in March to its highest reading in a year and now stands at 109.7, up from 90.4 in February. The FHFA home price index rose 1.0% in January to 316.7, hitting another new high. The S&P Case/Shiller 20-city home price index rose 0.9% to 243.0 in January.
TOP NEWS: In COVID-19 news, BioNTech (BNTX) and Pfizer (PFE) announced that they expect to increase manufacturing capacity for BNT162b2 - their joint COVID-19 vaccine - to up to 2.5B doses by the end of 2021. The increase is driven by the optimization of production processes, the recent initiation of production at BioNTech's Marburg, Germany facility, regulatory approval for six dose vials, and the expansion of the manufacturing and supplier network, said the companies, which added that further measures and discussions with potential partners to continue to expand the manufacturing capacity and network are ongoing.
Bitcoin jumped back above $59,000 earlier today after recent news that Visa (V) will allow USD Coin, another cryptocurrency, on its payment network and this morning's announcement that PayPal (PYPL) will allow U.S. consumers to use their cryptocurrency holdings to pay at millions of its online merchants.
MAJOR MOVERS: Among the noteworthy gainers was McCormick (MKC), which rose 1% after the company reported Q1 results and raised its FY21 guidance, with CEO Lawrence Kurzius citing "outstanding performance and an even stronger outlook for 2021." Also higher was AbCellera (ABCL), which gained 7% after the company reported its first quarter as a public company following its December 2020 IPO, with revenues beating his estimates.
Among the notable losers was Wave Life Sciences (WVE), which dropped 30% after the company's Phase 1b/2a Huntington's disease trial failed on efficacy. Also lower was Canoo (GOEV), which fell 22% and was downgraded to Neutral by Roth Capital analyst Craig Irwin after the EV startup reported its first quarterly results post SPAC-IPO.
INDEXES: Near midday, the Dow was down 144.02, or 0.43%, to 33,027.35, the Nasdaq was down 45.23, or 0.35%, to 13,014.41, and the S&P 500 was down 19.24, or 0.48%, to 3,951.85.
Pfizer
-0.47 (-1.28%)
BioNTech
+8.35 (+8.72%)
PayPal
+0.15 (+0.06%)
Visa
-2.34 (-1.09%)
Bitcoin
+ (+0.00%)
McCormick
+0.985 (+1.09%)
AbCellera
+1.805 (+7.73%)
Wave Life Sciences
-2.055 (-28.98%)
Canoo
-2.45 (-20.87%)