Mid-Morning Recap: June Begins with a Rally

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It’s summer and stocks are flowering. Triggered in the pre-session by a better-than-expected manufacturing report from China, stock indexes have continued to rise rapidly as personal spending beat forecasts for April, and new orders for U.S. manufacturing hit growth mode in May for the first time in 19 months.

Roughly 90 minutes into the trading session, the S&P has soared 2.43% to 941, the Dow is up 2.36% to 8700, and the Nasdaq has surged 2.64% to 1821. The 10-year bond has risen 0.07 points to 3.63%.

An hour before the opening bell, the Personal Income & Outlays report came in better than expected, posting a 0.5% gain in income, while spending fell by 0.1% instead of the -0.2% expectation.

Economics strategist Ian Pollick from TD Securities noted that much of the strength in the income component was from social security and jobless benefits rather than fundamental strength, so he cautioned against taking the report at face value.

“Having said that though, there is no denying that this is an extremely strong print and does suggest that there are some potential ‘green shoots’ starting to bloom within consumer spending,” he added.

At 10 am, the ISM Manufacturing Index improved to its highest level since September 2008 with a score of 42.8 in May, up from 40.1 in April. The nationwide survey of manufacturing executives was only slightly higher than the consensus forecast, but New Orders, a key leading indicator, reported growth for the first time since November 2007 with a score of 51.1.

“Also, the Customers' Inventories Index remained below 50 percent for the second consecutive month, offering encouragement that supply chains are starting to free themselves of excess inventories as nine industries report their customers' inventories as 'too low',” comment Nobert J. Ore, who chairs the survey committee. 

Aside from data, the big news this morning is that General Motors is officially filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, but to markets the automaker’s troubles are old news, easily ignored.