S&P in Choppy Trade as Tech Sluggish Amid Rotation From Growth to Value

By Yasin Ebrahim

Investing.com – The S&P 500 struggled for direction Friday as the rotation from growth to value continued, keeping tech stocks and the broader market in check.

The S&P 500 rose 0.1%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.45%, or 151 points,  and the Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.2%.

Investors bets that value sectors of the market will continue to outperform growth continued amid ongoing momentum in the economy, pushing financials, energy and industrials higher.

Financials were the best performing sector on the day, with banks including Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS), SVB Financial (NASDAQ:SIVB) and Citigroup (NYSE:C) in the ascendency.

A climb in Boeing (NYSE:BA), meanwhile, lifted industrials higher amid a Reuters report the aircraft maker is mulling ramping-up output of its 737 MAX jets to as many as 42 jets per month by late 2022.

Energy, meanwhile, was helped by a rebound in oil prices from weakness earlier this week, even as investors fear a wave of Iranian supply is on the horizon as the Islamic Republic inches closer to a nuclear deal.

The economic backdrop continued to support investor bets on a stronger recovery, as manufacturing and services activity, a key drivers of the economic engine, continued to improve.  

Tech, meanwhile, shed gains as growth stocks struggle to find their footing, with the sector at risk of notching a fifth straight week of losses.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Google-parent Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), and Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) were in the red. While Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) was flat.

Chip stocks were flat after strong week of gains, though Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) was up more than 3% after announcing a 4-for-1 stock split that will need to be backed by shareholders.

The Federal Reserve minutes for its April meeting showed some Fed members were starting to think about tapering bond purchases. The market largely took the comments in their stride as confidence that the Fed will able to lay the ground for a tapering without the tantrum, or sell-off in risk seen previously.

"[I]t was actually healthy for the market [the Fed comments on tapering], said David Wagner, portfolio manager at Aptus Capital Advisors, in a recent interview with Investing.com.

"This instills faith in the market that the FOMC is not completely dovish and that they can be hawkish, which is a positive from an inflationary perspective."

On the earnings front, Deere (NYSE:DE) and Palo Alto reported quarterly results that topped analysts expectation, sending their shares up more than 2% and 5%, respectively.

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In Washington meanwhile, news broke that the White House has scalded down the size of its infrastructure stimulus package to $1.7 trillion from $2.25 trillion ahead President Joe Biden's meeting with Senate Republics, who are wary of further spending. The proposal is still far off the GOPs counter offer of $568 million.