Dow jumps over 400 points on PMI data

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The S&P 500 and the Dow were on track to notch new all-time closing highs on Monday as surprisingly robust economic data stoked investor risk appetite, while cryptocurrency market cap breached the $2 trillion hurdle. Friday’s employment report, which showed 916,000 jobs added in March and the unemployment rate falling to 6%, driven by vaccine deployment and stimulus, marked the beginning of what could be the strongest yearly economic performance in decades. “Today’s action was set by Friday’s employment report,” said Paul Nolte, portfolio manager at Kingsview Asset Management in Chicago. Enthusiasm over the jobs report was boosted on Monday by the Institute for Supply Management’s non-manufacturing PMI reading hit an all-time high, showing the pandemic-battered services sector expanded at a record pace in March, and providing further evidence that the economic recovery was gaining momentum.Still, economically sensitive cyclicals and small caps are lagging. “Its been a strange market over the past week or so,” Nolte added. “Witallyh better economic data you’d expect economically sensitive stocks would be outperforming.” The rising stimulus tide is lifting all boats, Nolte suggests. “If you look at recent history, we’ve had everything rally  because of the flow of money come into financial markets,” he said. Nick Note:  All of our techies are doing well. This rally has legs. Still plenty of money coming into this market yo fuel this rocket…