(Bloomberg) – U.S. stocks fluctuated, after benchmark gauges closed at record levels yesterday, as private data showed companies added more workers than estimated in June before the government's jobs report tomorrow.
Constellation Brands Inc. rallied 2.9 percent after boosting its earnings forecast. Rackspace Hosting Inc. jumped 7.4 percent after TechCrunch reported the company may go private. Bank of America Corp. advanced 2.4 percent as Deutsche Bank AG advised investors to buy the stock. Airlines posted the biggest loss among S&P 500 industries after Delta Air Lines Inc.'s traffic growth slowed in June.
The Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 0.1 percent to 1,975.20 at 11:37 a.m. in New York. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 8.70 points, or less than 0.1 percent, to 16,964.77. Trading in S&P 500 stocks was 5 percent higher than the 30-day average during this time of the day.
"The ADP data is very strong," Jim McDonald, chief investment strategist at Chicago-based Northern Trust Corp., said by phone. His firm manages about $915 billion of assets. "It's another sign that we're regaining some momentum in the latter part of the year. People are probably not going to want to have big bets on ahead of the payroll number."
The S&P 500 and Dow reached records yesterday, with the 30- member Dow rising within two points of 17,000. The Dow Jones Transportation Average also jumped to an all-time high, while the Russell 2000 Index of smaller companies briefly touched a record. Simultaneous gains in different industries are sometimes cited by chart analysts as evidence economic growth is pervasive enough to fuel additional gains.
Growth Optimism
Stocks are extending a rebound from the selloff that started with biotechnology and small-cap stocks about three months ago. Equities have rallied since the S&P 500 reached a two-month low in April as central bank stimulus spread from Europe to Japan and the U.S.
Data from employment to housing is fueling confidence that the U.S. economy is rebounding after the worst contraction in gross domestic product since 2009.
"Everything that we're seeing in the second quarter has generally been improving and in most cases accelerated improvement," Chris Bouffard, chief investment officer at the Mutual Fund Store in Overland Park, Kansas, said by phone. His firm oversees $9 billion. "The market's looking to say the outlook for the next few quarters is more positive than we saw certainly in the first quarter." Employment Reports
Companies in the U.S. added 281,000 workers to their payrolls in June, figures from the ADP Research Institute in Roseland, New Jersey, showed today. The median projection of 47 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for an advance of 205,000.
The private report precedes the Labor Department's payrolls data tomorrow. Nonfarm payrolls may rise by 215,000 in June, which would mark a fifth straight month of increases topping 200,000, according to the median of 89 economists' estimates. That also would be the longest streak of monthly gains since September 1999-January 2000.
A separate release showed factory orders in the world's biggest economy fell 0.5 percent in May. Economists forecast a decline of 0.3 percent, according to a Bloomberg survey.
Yellen Speech
Fed Chair Janet Yellen said today that interest rates shouldn't be the main tool to promote financial stability.
