Wall Street Today: Morgan Stanley's Slimmon says buy reopening before too late

U.S. equities rose Monday as the Covid-19 immunization drive was bolstered by U.S. regulators granting full approval for the vaccine made by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 rebounded from lows last week as the approval could lead to more vaccine mandates amid a surge in delta variant cases that has threatened the momentum of the global economic recovery. Mixed U.S. data Monday showed July home sales coming in higher than expected while growth at U.S. services and factories slowed to an eight-month low.

Chip shortage set to worsen as Covid rampages through Malaysia

The number of Covid-19 infections is surging in Malaysia, threatening to aggravate shortages of semiconductors and other components that have hammered automakers for months. The Southeast Asian country hasn’t historically had the kind of importance to technology supply chains that Taiwan, South Korea or Japan do. But in recent years, Malaysia emerged as a major center for chip testing and packaging, with Infineon Technologies AG, NXP Semiconductors NV and STMicroelectronics NV among the key suppliers operating plants there.

Boeing plans investment in Virgin Orbit's $3.2 billion SPAC listing

Virgin Orbit said it would list on the Nasdaq stock market by merging with NextGen Acquisition Corp., a special-purpose acquisition company run by former Goldman Sachs banker George Mattson and Greg Summe, a former senior executive at the Carlyle Group.

The payments processor said Monday it bought a “CryptoPunk,” one of thousands of NFT-based digital avatars, for nearly $150,000 in ethereum.

An NFT — which stands for non-fungible token — is a unique digital asset designed to represent ownership of a virtual item. Unlike bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, NFTs can’t be exchanged like-for-like with another NFTs.

But both stocks closed higher, showing that investors may have brushed off the ruling. Uber stock gained 2.6%, while Lyft shares rose 2.9%.

Trading conditions in $22tn Treasury market worsen ahead of Jackson Hole

Trading conditions in the $22tn US government bond market, a bedrock of the global financial system, have deteriorated as traders brace themselves for a key speech this week from Federal Reserve chief Jay Powell.

Liquidity, or the ease with which traders can buy and sell bonds, has worsened as a series of jerky price movements and uncertainty over Fed policy have kept investors from making big bets. Thin trading volumes, with many market participants out of the office in August, have exacerbated the problem.

Global economic data disappointments add to rising growth angst

US and international data releases are missing forecasts at an accelerating pace, highlighting rising investor angst that the spread of the Delta coronavirus variant will slow the pace of the global economic recovery.

Several closely watched US economic measures published in recent weeks have come in well below Wall Street expectations, indicating the powerful economic growth from the depths of the Covid crisis may be losing steam.

Morgan Stanley's Slimmon says buy reopening before too late

Slimmon, who oversees about $7.5 billion at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, says it’s not unusual to see economic hiccups this time of year. Going forward, “people will turn a little bit more optimistic,” which bodes well for equities that have sold off due to Covid-related worries. Rates could bottom in the coming months and recover in the fourth quarter as well, he added.

“The opportunity set is in those stocks that got hit the most, namely the cyclical stocks, the energy stocks, the reopening stocks -- those are the ones that are down the most,” he said in an interview.