Stock Market Today: Relief Rally Fizzles Late

The markets staged a slim, shaky rebound on a Wednesday that was light on data, with the gravitational pull of U.S. Treasuries' rate revival in plain sight.

A day after the 10-year Treasury yield reached 1.567%, putting a scare into the major indexes, it retreated to roughly 1.5% early on in the session ... but clawed its way back to 1.54% by the afternoon.

What did that do to equities?

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It put a lid on technology stocks (-0.1%), which finished with the day's second-worst sector performance. Instead, investors were interested in defense. Utility stocks (+1.5%), consumer staples (+0.9%) and healthcare (+0.8%) led the markets higher, with notable gains coming from the likes of Eli Lilly (LLY, +4.0%), Sempra Energy (SRE, +3.1%) and ConAgra (CAG, +3.0%).

Even so, the major indices coughed up much of the day's progress during the session's final hour. The result was small gains for the Dow (+0.3% to 34,390) and S&P 500 (+0.2% to 4,359), while the tech-heavy Nasdaq finished with a 0.2% loss to 14,512.

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Other news in the stock market today:

• The small-cap Russell 2000 also slid into the red shortly before the close, giving up 0.2% to 2,225.
• Dollar Tree (DLTR) surged 16.5% today after the discount retailer said it will begin offering products priced up to $5 in its Dollar Tree Plus stores and will test the $1+ price points in select legacy stores. DLTR also announced that its board of directors has authorized a $1.05 billion-boost to its share repurchase program, bringing the aggregate amount to $2.5 billion. Already in fiscal 2021, the company has repurchased $950 million of its shares, according to Michael Witynski, president and CEO of Dollar Tree.
• Eyewear startup Warby Parker (WRBY) made a splash in its market debut. WRBY went public via a direct listing, an alternative to traditional initial public offerings (IPOs). WRBY stock opened at $54.05 per share, more than 35% above its $40 reference point. Shares gained a little more ground from there, finishing the day up 36.2% to $54.49. There's still a host of companies set to go public over the next several months. Here's a running list of the most anticipated IPOs for the rest of 2021.
• U.S. crude oil futures slipped 0.6% to finish at $74.83 per share.
• Gold futures shed 0.8% to settle at $1,722.90 an ounce.
• The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) pulled back 2.3% to 22.71.
• Bitcoin prices slid 1.0% to $41.178.28. (Bitcoin trades 24 hours a day; prices reported here are as of 4 p.m. each trading day.)

Can AI Really Pick Stocks?

We frequently keep tabs on the so-called smart money.

While even the most revered investors can get it wrong from time to time (just ask Warren Buffett about his 1993 purchase of Dexter Shoe), hedge funds, billionaires and institutional investors have access to invaluable insights and research that makes their high-conviction moves worth monitoring. That's why we provide the occasional look into billionaire buys, hedge-fund favorites and, of course, Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway portfolio.

But from time to time, it also pays to see what the robots have to say.

Financial advice firm Danelfin (formerly Danel Capital) has developed an analytics platform that analyzes fundamental, technical and sentiment data for hundreds of U.S. stocks to determine which have the best setup for market outperformance over the next 90 days.

We've recently caught up with Danelfin, whose system continues to beat the market in 2021, and reviewed its 10 top stocks to watch at the moment. Check them out!