Wall Street heads higher in early deals

The main Wall Street indices moved higher on Tuesday morning despite tech stocks being slated for a downward drop. In the early minutes of trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.49% to 31,956, while the S&P 500 climbed 1.17% to 3,865. The Nasdaq also managed a rebound, defying expectations to jump 2.3% to 12,902. The broad rally may be being driven by fresh optimism over US stimulus as the US$1.9 trillion package heads to the House of Representatives for approval. Markets also seemed to have mostly shrugged off fears over inflation and rising bond yields which have characterised recent activity. 7:45am: Wall Street to move mostly higher at the opening bell The Dow Jones Industrial Average is set for another strong showing today, continuing its spell in the sun as investors cool on technology stocks. Spread betting quotes point to the Dow surging 166 points to 31,968 while the broader-based S&P 500 is tipped to climb 40 points to 3,861. At the same time, the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 is expected to open little changed. “The reflation trade is full-on, as investors are migrating from growth to value stocks in a fast fashion, leaving their favourite tech darlings abated by aggressive waves of sell-off and the index performances summarise well the underlying migration,” said Ipek Ozkardeskaya at Swissquote. “Nasdaq closed Monday’s session 2.41% lower, while the Dow ended near 1% higher, reaching a new all-time record regardless of its tech peers' despair. “Apple and Netflix plummeted more than 4%, Facebook dived 3.39% and Amazon fell 1.62% “Tesla plunged another 5.84% eating up all gains recorded for the past three months,” Ozkardeskaya recounted. On the macroeconomic front in the USA, the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) optimism index climbed to 95.8 in February from 95 in January but was well below the consensus forecast of 97.0. “The details are stronger than the headline, which is constrained by smaller increases than we expected in the economic and earnings expectations components, and a small decline in sales expectations but the key labour market numbers jumped, with the proportion of firms reporting jobs hard to fill soaring seven points to a record high,” reported Ian Shepherdson, the chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. “The proportion of firms reporting that finding qualified labour is their biggest problem has now recovered most of the drop triggered by Covid, and both actual and expected employee compensation are rising. The labour market, in short, looks nothing like the wasteland seen after the crash of 2008, and the potential for wage inflation to rise as the economy recovers is much greater,” Shepherdson suggested. Three things to watch for on Tuesday: There aren’t many big caps in the earnings diary for Tuesday, however lower down the scale there will be numbers from RV maker Thor Industries Inc (NYSE:THO), retailer Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc (NYSE:DKS) and truck and engine maker Navistar International Corp (NYSE:NAV) Meanwhile, investors may also be keeping an eye on the annual general meeting of media giant Walt Disney Co (NYSE:DIS) Also in focus will be electric car firms Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) and Nio Inc (NYSE:NIO) following upbeat car sales data from China