No bear, all bull: Despite a down day for Dow, Wall Street has been on a tear

The Dow Jones Industrial Average briefly hit a record high Wednesday, finishing the day up 152.03 points, or .4 percent. It has since fallen 96 points, or .3 percent, to 35,514 as of 10:19 a.m. EST Thursday. That is just below the previous record set Aug. 16.

The S&P 500 index was also poised to set a new record high as of Thursday morning. It was sitting just below the all-time high reached Sept. 2.

“This market is truly climbing the proverbial wall of worry,” Piper Sandler Chief Market Technician Craig Johnson said. Johnson was referring to a variety of issues in the economy:

• The surge of the Delta variant of COVID-19
• Supply chain issues
• An energy crisis
• Inflation
• Plans to remove government stimulus
• China’s property crisis

Two factors that helped the Dow reach a record high are strong earnings reports from companies this month, as well as a resurgence from Bitcoin. The cryptocurrency set a new record in value Wednesday, topping $66,000. The record came a day after a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund, or ETF, hit the New York Stock Exchange. Shares of the ProShares’ “BITO” changed hands 24.1 million times Tuesday. That powered the second busiest day of ETF trading ever.

Despite strong earnings reports from multiple companies, others struggled. Technology stocks were among the biggest weights on holding down the broader market Thursday. IBM fell 7.1 percent after reporting disappointing third-quarter revenue. Health care stocks also slipped Thursday after two days of making broad gains. This includes Quest Diagnostics, which fell 3.5 percent.

Outside of earnings, investors received an encouraging update on the labor market. The Labor Department reported Thursday the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell last week to a new low point since the pandemic erupted. Unemployment claims dropped 6,000 to 290,000 last week. That’s the third straight weekly drop.

The Labor Department’s report also showed the number of people receiving jobless aid continued to fall steadily. In the week of Oct. 2, 3.3 million people received unemployment benefits. That’s down from 3.6 million in the previous week.