By Yasin Ebrahim
Investing.com – The Dow climbed Wednesday, as energy and financials increased on growing expectations for a sooner and stronger than expected reopening, but high-flying tech continued to bleed as investors paused bets on growth.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.21%, or 65 points. The S&P 500 fell 0.68%, and the Nasdaq Composite fell 2.03%.
Energy was up nearly 2% on rising oil prices as investors shrugged off a record weekly jump in U.S. weekly crude stocks, attributing the build to lower inventories used to produce products like gasoline following the cold snap that wreaked havoc in oil-rich Texas.
Diamondback Energy (NASDAQ:FANG), Hess (NYSE:HES) were up more 6%, while HollyFrontier Corporation (NYSE:HFC) soared 7%
Financials also contributed to the rally, lifted by a jump in U.S. rates and bets a faster rollout of vaccines will support a sooner and stronger than expected reopening. President Joe Biden said Tuesday the U.S. will have enough vaccines for all adults by the end of May, two months sooner than initially expected.
In Texas Governor Greg Abbott ended the mask mandate and said all business can reopen in the state.
Tech, however, came under as investors continued to move out of higher-priced growth names that are less attractive in period of rising inflation in which a dollar today is more worth more than a dollar in the future.
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) traded in the red.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co (NYSE:HPE), meanwhile, was unchanged despite reporting quarterly results that beat analysts' expectations on both the top and bottom lines, underpinned by the increasing number of companies making the shift to digital.
Box (NYSE:BOX) climbed 2% as its fourth-quarter results topped Wall Street estimates and the online storage company guided first quarter revenue to top $200 million for the first time.
In merger and acquisitions news, Las Vegas Sands (NYSE:LVS) said it would sell its Las Vegas properties to private-equity firms Apollo Global and VICI Properties (NYSE:VICI) for $6.25 billion. Las Vegas Sands was up about 3%
In other news, LYFT Inc (NASDAQ:LYFT) jumped more than 4% after company upgraded its outlook on a better-than-expected recovery in ridesharing demand.