Stocks close down but stay near record highs

Markets rallied for much of Thursday, but finished at session lows to hover near record highs. Weighing on investors’ minds are the latest U.S. weekly jobless claims which spiked unexpectedly to levels last seen in August 2020, and the slow roll-out of vaccines. However, bulls await incoming President Biden to announce his stimulus plan Thursday evening. The S&P closed -0.38 while the Nasdaq and Dow finished around -0.2%. In contrast, the Russell 2000 rallied 2%. In addition to small, caps, energy and financials continued to run up.

Chevron rose 2.4% and all the major banks moved higher with Goldman Sachs climbing 1.63% to a new high. However, other financials didn’t fare so well, like Visa down 3.58%. Even worse were social media names, so dominant last year, have been taking it on the chin in 2021. Snap plunged 8.24% while Twitter slid 3%. IPOs continued to skyrocket as Petco shot up 63% and Poshmark by 141%.

Things were a little more sedate on the TSX, which actually gained 0.13%. The biggest gainers included Blackberry, soaring over 21% after it sold 90 smartphone patents to Huawei. Also, Aphria shot up 20% in heavy trading after posting surprisingly high revenue. Crescent Point vaulted nearly 9%. A rash of other cannabis and oil names lifted the overall TSX, though the big banks continued to nudge up. Industrials and staples lagged. The price of WTI jumped nearly 1.5% and WCS about twice as much. Lastly, Bitcoin continued to swing wildly as it popped 9%.

🛢 Chevron Texaco +2.4%
🏛 Goldman Sachs +1.63%
💳 Visa Inc. -3.58%
📷 Snap Inc. -8.24%
🐦 Twitter, Inc -3%
🐶 Petco +63%
🛍 Poshmark +141%
📱 BlackBerry +21%
🌿 Aphria Inc +20%
🛢 Crescent Point Energy Corp +9%