# Dow hangs onto gains as stocks trade mixed following Powell speech

The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
+0.39%
was up 109 points, or 0.4%, near 28,258, while the S&P 500
SPX,
+0.22%
was up 8 points, or 0.2%, at 3,417. The Nasdaq Composite
COMP,
-0.05%
fell around 10 points, or 0.1%, to 11,322.

The Dow on Monday rose 465.83 points or 1.7% to finish at 28,148.64, while the S&P 500 rose 60.19 points, or 1.8%, to close at 3,408.63. The Nasdaq finished at 11,332.49, up 257.47 points, or 2.3%.

What’s driving the market?

In a speech to the National Association of Business Economics, Powell repeated that the U.S. economy needs more fiscal support even though the recovery from the “natural disaster” of the coronavirus pandemic so far has been strong.

Investors remain focused on long-stalled talks between the Trump administration and congressional Democrats on another round of coronavirus aid spending. Fears the economic recovery from the pandemic-induced near-shutdown earlier this year could stall without another round of fiscal support have been on the rise.

Crunchtime is approaching for a fiscal deal, said Tom Plumb, portfolio manager of the Plumb Balanced Fund, in an interview. A plea Monday by management of Southwest Airlines
LUV,
+1.76%
to union workers to make sacrifices due to the inaction of the federal government was a “shot across the bow,” Plumb said.

As traditionally well-managed companies suffer, the potential for mass layoffs and other hardship come more sharply into focus, he said.

Shares in Cineworld
CINE,
+10.31%
plunged 57% on Monday, after the world’s second-largest movie chain confirmed it will temporarily close its cinemas in the U.K. and the U.S., putting 45,000 jobs at risk.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, told Democratic congressional leaders late Monday that stimulus talks with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin were going “very slowly,” Politico reported. Pelosi and Mnuchin are scheduled to speak again Tuesday, the report said.

Stocks logged strong gains on Monday, tied in part to rising optimism over another round of coronavirus aid spending, bouncing back after stocks fell Friday following President Donald Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis and hospitalization. Trump late Monday left Walter Reed Medical Center after a three-night stay. Trump’s doctors said the president wasn’t “out of the woods” but that his condition had improved.

Read: Trump tweets ‘don’t be afraid of COVID,’ sparking heated Twitter exchanges

In economic data, the U.S. trade deficit climbed almost 6% in August to $67.1 billion, the third widest gap on record, reflecting a continuing struggle by American exporters to recover all the ground lost in the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic. Economists polled by MarketWatch has forecast a $66.7 billion trade gap.

Hiring and job openings in the private sector fell in August in a sign the U.S. labor market was cooling off as an economic recovery lost some of its earlier momentum, a government survey showed.

Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker, Atlanta Fed Raphael Bostic and Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan are also slated to makes speeches Tuesday.

See: Trump’s coronavirus recovery, stimulus hope, election clarity: What’s really driving the market?

Which companies are in focus?

• Southwest Airlines shares
  LUV,
  +1.76%
  were up 1.9% after its call for union concessions.

• Boeing Co.
  BA,
  -2.75%
  shares dropped 2.2% after the aircraft maker forecast an 11% drop in demand for commercial planes in the next decade and, in a separate outlook for the commercial aviation market, said it sees passenger-traffic growth to increase by an average of 4% a year in the next two decades.

• Apple Inc.
  AAPL,
  -1.29%
  announced it would hold an online event on Oct. 13 that’s expected to bring the launch of its new family of iPhones. Shares were down 0.9%.

• Shares of Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc.
  ALXN,
  +0.95%
  were up 0.7%, after the biopharmaceutical company said it expected to raise its 2020 revenue guidance by more than $200 million, when it reports third-quarter results.

• Shares of Sonos Inc. SONO are off 5% after a Bloomberg report highlighted that Apple Inc. AAPL is no longer selling the company’s speakers in its stores.

What are other markets doing?

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note
TMUBMUSD10Y,
0.781%
rose 1.6 basis points to 0.778%. Yields and bond prices move in opposite directions.

In global equities, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index
HSI,
+0.89%
rose 0.9%, while Japan’s Nikkei 225
NIK,
+0.52%
gained 0.5%. The pan-European Stoxx 600 Europe
SXXP,
+0.06%
and London’s FTSE 100
UKX,
+0.11%
each rose 0.1%.

Gold edged higher, with the December contract
GOLD,
-2.08%
off 0.5% on Comex. Oil futures added to big gains scored on Monday, with the U.S. benchmark
CL.1,
+3.08%
up more than 2%.

The greenback is flat for the day based on trading in the ICE U.S. Dollar Index.
DXY,
+0.01%