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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.
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.
