By Geoffrey Smith
Investing.com -- U.S. stocks ended the Trump presidency on a high note on Wednesday, amid signs that the peak of the Covid-19 infection curve has passed and in anticipation of aggressive efforts to reflate the weakened economy by the new administration, due to be sworn in in a couple of hours.
By 9:40 AM ET (1440 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 83 points, or 0.3% at 31,014 points. The S&P 500 was up 0.6% and the Nasdaq Composite was up 1.4%. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies, meanwhile, was up 0.4%, testing a new all-time high.
Stocks have been supported this week by Janet Yellen's forceful arguments for more fiscal spending this year to support the economy through the pandemic. Yellen, who is incoming President Joe Biden's Treasury Secretary designate, told her confirmation hearing in the Senate on Tuesday that the high debt levels that such spending will create should be seen as a matter for another day.
The Nasdaq was lifted in particular by Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) stock, which surged 14.4% after the streaming giant said it expects to be cash-flow positive this year and thus no longer dependent on the debt markets to fund new content. The company added 8.5 million new subscribers in the last quarter, taking the overall base above 200 million for the first time and cementing its leadership in an increasingly competitive field for video entertainment.
Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) stock also powered 1.6% higher to its highest since the wheels fell off the subprime credit boom in 2007, after the bank reported a sharp rise in profits powered by its trading and underwriting businesses.
Elsewhere, Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) ADRs rose 4.9% after founder Jack Ma reappeared in public for the first time since China's regulators forced him to abandon the proposed initial public offering of his giant financial services holding Ant Group. The scrapping of the IPO, and the publication soon afterwards of new regulation that will greatly limit its profitability, had been widely interpreted as reflecting a political campaign to reduce the influence that Ma's spectacular rise to riches has brought him.
As earnings season cranks up, Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG) stock slipped 0.7% despite raising its guidance}} for profit and shareholder returns over its current fiscal year, which ends in June. Online luxury store TheRealReal, by contrast, hit a new all-time high after solid results from two European luxury names, Burberry (OTC:BURBY) and Compagnie Financiere Richemont (OTC:{{941829|CFRUY).