Stock Market Today: Dow in Rally Mode as Bullish Banks Jump as Earnings Heat Up

By Yasin Ebrahim

Investing.com -- The Dow racked up gains Monday, as a wave of mostly better-than-expected quarterly results from major Wall Street banks lifted sentiment on stocks.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.9% or 550 points, the S&P 500 rose 2.7%, the Nasdaq was up 3.4%,

Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) continued the trend of upbeat quarterly results from Wall Street banks after reporting better-than-expected third-quarter results, driven by a strong performance in its fixed income business and higher rates that boosted net interest income.

Bank of New York Mellon (NYSE:BK) rallied 5% after its third-quarter results also beat on both the top and bottom lines.

In other banking-related news, Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE:GS) reportedly plans to streamline its different businesses into three divisions as part of a company reorganization.

Consumer discretionary stocks, however, led the gains in the broader market amid dip-buying in Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) following a rout in the electric vehicle maker last week. The rally in the EV maker comes just days ahead of its quarterly results due Oct. 19.

Travel and leisure stocks were also in the ascendency, with Expedia (NASDAQ:EXPE), MGM Resorts (NYSE:MGM), and Caesars Entertainment Corporation (NASDAQ:CZR) sharply higher with the latter up more than 6%.  

In tech, meanwhile, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) rose nearly 3% to lead big tech higher after Morgan Stanley rated the tech giant as its top pick despite suggesting further downside to estimates ahead.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META), meanwhile, gained more than 5% shrugging off a Wall Street Journal report, citing internal documents, suggesting that the company’s flagship metaverse product “Horizon Worlds” was running behind schedule. The product had less than 200,000 monthly active users, compared with a revised year-end goal of 280,000, according to the report. 

Tech was also helped by easing Treasury yields as the 10-year yield hovered at 4%.

The positive start to the week followed a major selloff last week but some on Wall Street continue to believe stocks remain expensive.

"Despite the S&P 500 having declined by 23% from its peak in January, most absolute valuation metrics show that US stocks remain expensive vs. history," Goldman Sachs said in a recent note.