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Investing.com — U.S. stock markets opened modestly higher on Tuesday, but another sign of the housing market weakening took much of the energy out of an overnight rebound.
By 9:40 AM ET (1340 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 140 points, or 0.4%, at 34,105 points, recouping only one fifth of its 2% loss on Monday, when the market was gripped by fears of another Covid-19-driven slowdown.
The S&P 500 was up 0.4%, while the Nasdaq Composite, which had outperformed on the way down on Monday, was down another 0.2%.
Earlier, building permit data for June surprisingly fell 5.1%, to their lowest level since November. Granular data from the report showed a drop in permits across all major regions, against a backdrop of higher raw materials prices and anecdotal labor shortages.
Fears about a resurgence of the pandemic were evident in a 7.2% rise in Novavax (NASDAQ:NVAX) stock and a 5.1% rise in Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) stock. BioNTech (NASDAQ:BNTX) stock meanwhile, also hit a new record high with a 2.0% gain. The stocks were also supported by signs of a change in policy at Fox News, where host Sean Hannity and others have suddenly swung behind supporting the national vaccination campaign. Fox has so far been a conduit for some of the more skeptical opinions toward Covid-19 vaccines.
On a heavy day for earnings, IBM (NYSE:IBM) stock stood out with a 4.8% gain after revenue growth – its Achilles’ heel for the last decade – came in substantially above expectations, bolstering confidence in its transformation into a Cloud-centered service provider.
