By Geoffrey Smith
Investing.com -- .U.S. stocks opened higher on Wednesday after payrolls processor ADP (NASDAQ:ADP) registered a jump in private-sector hiring March, reassuring participants that the U.S. economy is starting to put its Covid-19 nightmare behind it.
ADP said 517,000 private-sector jobs were created in the month through mid-March, less than the 550,000 expected but still almost three times February's number and a clear sign of life in a service sector that accounts for most of the current 10 million-job shortfall in the economy, measured against pre-pandemic levels.
By 9:40 AM ET (1340 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 87 points, or 0.3%, at 33,154 points. The S&P 500 was up 0.4% and the Nasdaq Composite was up 1.0%.
The market was generally quiet ahead of a major policy speech by President Joe Biden, who is expected to unveil a $2 trillion infrastructure spending plan later. Of especial interest will be the scope of plans to broaden and accelerate the clean energy transition, with all that that implies for the energy and transport sectors. Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) stock rose 3.3% in anticipation and Blink Charging (NASDAQ:BLNK) stock rose 6.6%.
Broadband access and water systems are two other focus areas of the speech, according to various reports.
Long-term interest rates, in the form of bond yields, have risen markedly since Biden secured control of both houses of Congress in January, in anticipation of a wave of deficit spending to support the economy. The 10-Year Treasury yield was stable at around 1.72% on Wednesday, having hit a 2021 high of 1.77% on Tuesday.
Rising interest rates were once again reflected in a fourth straight fall in mortgage applications last week, which were down 2.2% from a week earlier. Not only have refinancing rates gone up, but prices are also rising at their fastest pace in a decade, according to data released on Tuesday. Pending home sales, meanwhile, fell by over 10% in February, the biggest drop since May.
Among individual movers, Chewy (NYSE:CHWY) stock regained its mojo with the biggest gain in months - some 10% - after posting solid guidance and better-than-expected earnings, driven by wider operating margins. Lululemon Athletica (NASDAQ:LULU) went the other way after publishing disappointingly vague guidance, the yogawear maker's stock slipping 5.1%.
Elsewhere, the aftershocks of the Archegos fiasco continued to ripple through prices: ViacomCBS (NASDAQ:VIAC) fell another 3.4% after bouncing a little on Tuesday, while Tencent (HK:0700) Music Entertainment (NYSE:TME) fell 1.6%.