Applications for unemployment benefits across the US hit another pandemic low last week as the economy continued to reopen.
The good news sent markets higher across the board, with the Dow Jones up 0.9%, the S&P 500 up 0.8% and the Nasdaq continuing to struggle, adding just 0.4%.
The Biden Administration also confirmed that they would keep in place curbs on Chinese companies’ ability to accept US capital, a Trump era policy.
PayPal driving innovation
Digital payments processor PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL) surged after announcing record transaction levels of US$285 billion in the first quarter, up 50%.
This was driven by a 4% increase in active accounts to 392 million, which powered a 31% increase in revenue to US$6 billion.
The firm is benefitting from the stickiness of online sales, now expecting 52-55 million new accounts in FY21, and revenue to climb 20% to US$26 billion for the year.
The company recently expanded into new revenue streams, allowing users to buy and sell with crypto currencies and has announced an aggressive expansion of its BNPL facility.
US stock market movers
Despite the Nasdaq finishing the day higher, high-growth tech shares trading on loftier valuations tumbled as the heights of earnings season draw to a close.
- MercadoLibre (NASDAQ: MELI) fell 5.5%
- Datadog (NASDAQ: DDOG) fell 7.0%
- Uber (NYSE: UBER) fell 8.9%
- Twilio (NASDAQ: TWLO) fell 9.4%
- Cloudflare (NASDAQ: NET) fell 12.6%
- Etsy (NASDAQ: ETSY) fell 14.6%
- Fastly (NASDAQ: FSLY) fell 27.1%
In more positive news, these US stocks posted healthy gains overnight.
- Kellogg (NYSE: K) up 7.1%
- T-Mobile (NASDAQ: TMUS) up 3.5%
- Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ: ATVI) up 3.3%
- Costco (NASDAQ: COST) up 2.8%
- Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) up 2.6%
- Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) up 2.3%
Back home on the ASX, the S&P/ASX 200 (ASX: XJO) is set to follow US markets higher at the open this morning. For all the latest, check out Rask Media’s ASX 200 morning report.
