Stock Market Today: Stocks Fall as Bond Yields Climb

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Stocks closed lower Wednesday as rising government bond yields offset a round of well-received corporate earnings reports.

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On the earnings front, Netflix (NFLX) stock rallied 13.1% after the streaming giant unveiled better-than-expected third-quarter results and gave details on its planned crackdown on password sharing. Additionally, "Netflix's ad-supported tier, the launch of which has been moved up several months, seems to be showing promising signs," says Chris Legg, senior managing director of investment bank Progress Partners. "The savior to long-term negative trends is to pick up new subscribers with the lower cost ($6.99 per month) ad-supported model set to launch next month."

This sentiment is echoed by Wes Gottesman, market advisor at Web3 trading platform TradeZing. "I believe this will be a major hit for budget-conscious consumers, as Netflix proposes they will be adding another 4.5 million subscribers during the first fiscal quarter," Gottesman says. "Not only will Netflix continue to be paid a monthly subscription fee, but they will also generate ad revenue, along with their ad-free tier."

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"Netflix also said they will cut down on password sharing," says Doron Gerstel, CEO of global advertising technology firm Perion. "This limiting of access will mean that consumers who need their 'Netflix fix' are likely to opt for the lower-cost ad-supported model. So the password effort is also a new user harvesting initiative in disguise."

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It wasn't just NFLX gaining ground on solid quarterly results. Consumer staples giant Procter & Gamble (PG, +1.0%) and air carrier United Airlines Holdings (UAL, +5.0%) both jumped on Q3 beats.

However, the major market indexes finished in the red as the 10-year Treasury yield rose 12.9 basis points to 4.127% – its highest level since late 2008. (A basis point = 0.01%.) The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.3% to 30,423, the S&P 500 Index gave back 0.7% to 3,695, and the Nasdaq Composite shed 0.9% to 10,680.

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Earnings will continue to roll in over the next few weeks. In the near term: results from Tesla (TSLA), Snap (SNAP) and American Express (AXP), which are all on this week's earnings calendar.

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"The earnings season floodgates officially opened over the last twenty-four hours. Thus far broadly speaking, like Q2, the numbers have been coming in better than feared," says Michael Reinking, senior market strategist at the New York Stock Exchange. "It is still early but we are not seeing the widespread guidance cuts that markets were looking for and it seems like we are once again kicking the can down the road to next quarter (if it does in fact eventually happen)."

And with expectations so low that companies are actually beating them, this could result in short-term upside for stocks. That was certainly the case with several big bank stocks, as well as Netflix. But what about the lesser-known names? The stock market is rife with undiscovered gems boasting stable fundamentals and solid growth prospects. Here, we take a look at 10 of the best ones.

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With over a decade of experience writing about the stock market, Karee Venema is the senior investing editor at Kiplinger.com. She joined the publication in April 2021 after 10 years of working as an investing writer and columnist at a local investment research firm. In her previous role, Karee focused primarily on options trading, as well as technical, fundamental and sentiment analysis.