Apr 19, 2023 - Economy
Stocks are approaching their 2023 highs
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Stocks are closing in on their highs for the year as the S&P 500 recovers ground lost amid the Silicon Valley Bank bust.
By the numbers: The S&P 500 closed Tuesday up 8.2% since we put the awful year of '22 in the rearview.
- The S&P was down 19.4% last year. (Let us never speak of it again.)
Between the lines: It's mostly the same old story, with this year's drop in longer-term interest rates goosing the kind of tech stocks that benefit from falling rates.
- The yield on the 10-year Treasury note is down to about 3.6%, from over 4% in early March.
The impact: The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite is up 16% so far in 2023.
- The "communications services" sector — a category that includes Meta and Alphabet — is the best performing of the S&P 500's 11 sectors, up more than 20%.
The other side: Financials — down 2.6% — are the worst performing part of the market, which is no surprise given the stress they saw during the Silicon Valley Bank collapse.
- First Republic, the troubled San Francisco lender that was caught in the SVB downdraft, has seen its shares decline about 90% in 2023.
