Dow Jones Now Ticking Higher Despite Worrisome Jobs Market

The Dow Jones now is ticking up despite private payrolls for July coming in worse than expected. According to ADP, private jobs were 167,000 for the month, well below the consensus forecast of 1 million.

The news is sobering ahead of Friday's official jobs report from the U.S. Labor Department. More below on what's moving the Dow today.

First, here are the numbers from Tuesday for the Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq:

Now here's a closer look at today's most important market events and stocks. We'll also discuss the stories that slipped under the radar of the mainstream financial press on Wednesday.

The Top Stock Market Stories for Wednesday

• Today, investors are hoping that lawmakers in Washington will take the underwhelming private jobs numbers report seriously. The report from ADP this morning signals that Americans are not getting back to work as quickly as some economists had predicted. Democrats and Republicans in Washington remain deadlocked over the proposal for a new COVID-19 stimulus relief package. The program that paid unemployed Americans an extra $600 per week ended last Friday.

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• Johns Hopkins University reported the number of deaths due to COVID-19 has now surpassed 700,000 around the globe. U.S. cases surpassed 4.77 million on Tuesday evening. New York is still the state that has been impacted the most by the outbreak with more than 32,700 deaths since it hit U.S. shores. The Trump administration said yesterday that roughly half of the deaths in the United States are tied to nursing homes.
• Gold is now sitting north of $2,050 per ounce thanks to a softer U.S. dollar and growing bets on another round of stimulus from Congress. Silver was up another 3.3% this morning and is on the verge of topping $27. Investors are piling into the metal as Congress struggles to come up with a new round of stimulus. It is clear that the U.S. Federal Reserve will continue to pump liquidity into the economy; however, the cost now looks like a weaker U.S. dollar that could negatively impact purchasing power.

Stocks to Watch Today: MRNA, CVS, DIS

• Shares of Moderna Inc. (NASDAQ: MRNA) were off 2.1% today despite developments on a coronavirus vaccine. The company plans to charge between $32 and $37 for a vaccine for some of its customers, under what media outlets are calling less expensive "pandemic pricing." The update came as part of its quarterly earnings report in which the firm said that its second-quarter revenue increased by 400%.
• In earnings news, shares of Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) rallied more than 6% after the company reported a surprise profit for the quarter. Although COVID-19 has wiped out attendance at its parks and limited its ability to release new films, the company reported earnings per share of $0.08. It has benefited greatly from its Disney Plus streaming service, which now has more than 100 million members.
• CVS Health Corp. (NYSE: CVS) popped more than 4% after reporting quarterly earnings of $2.64 per share. That was well above the $1.93 per share expected among Wall Street analysts. The company also beat revenue forecasts and hiked its full-year guidance for the year. However, due to the outbreak of COVID-19, the company did report that it filled fewer prescriptions than analysts had expected.

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