Stocks close higher, S&P enters bull market: Closing bell

U.S. markets close the day higher, with the S&P 500 officially entering bull market territory.

Shares of Wynn Resorts and Las Vegas Sands ended the day lower after the companies were downgraded at Jefferies. Yahoo Finance Live takes a look at the market as the closing bell rings.

Video transcript

[AUDIO LOGO]

SEANA SMITH: So let's do the check-in on the markets. Just about two minutes to go until the closing bell, we're looking at gains across the board. The Dow up at just shy of 200 points. S&P adding to the gains just below that 4,300 level that many on the Street are closely watching. The NASDAQ adding just about 1% today.

When you take a look at the sector action technology, one of the outperformers in today's trading action, consumer discretionary, not too far behind. But Akiko, a lot of investors out there, traders, just questioning this hype, this outperformance that we have seen in technology since the start of the year. A lot of that driven by the excitement around AI and whether or not there's enough momentum to continue here to the upside.

AKIKO FUJITA: Yeah. I feel like we've heard the word "bubble" a few times this week. But it really is about, you know, how much-- how can you really differentiate between some of these names that have claimed to be sort of right at the foundation of AI. Nvidia 1 obviously, that's gotten a lot of attention, the Microsofts, the Alphabets. But some of these other names that are sort of smaller players in AI, but that is going to continue. We have heard companies sort of push out the word to try and sort of get the hype going. So we're going to continue to watch that as well.

I should point out some other sectors that we're watching today. Energy, another one. Oil, we did see it down about 2% here, Brent crude at $75 a barrel. Oil WTI at 71. And this is kind of, you know, on the back of the OPEC discussion that we continue to see. The $80 a barrel level is where OPEC would like it. But we're still seeing some downward pressure on that front.

Overall, on the day, though, some positive gains, as Seana pointed out, across all three majors with tech and consumer discretionaries leading the gains.

[BELL RINGING]

SEANA SMITH: All right. Well, that calls today's trading day. Again, all three of the major averages ending to the upside the Dow up 167 points off the highs of the session. S&P up about 6/10 of a percent. NASDAQ outperform on the day, up just about 1%.

The chicken on some of the individual movers. And first up, casino stocks. Wynn Resorts and Las Vegas Sands closing the day lower. They were downgraded to hold from Bae at Jefferies. Analyst there, David Katz, citing the new normal in casino stock, saying that the recovery in the gambling hug hub has been, quote, "approximately priced in at these current levels." We're seeing a bit of pressure today. Akiko, Las Vegas Sands has outperformed since the start of the year, up just about 20%. But I guess, he sees the recovery already priced into this stock.

AKIKO FUJITA: Yeah. I mean, a lot of this is really about their exposure to the Chinese market, specifically Macau, which is increasingly a bigger chunk of the revenue. And, you know, to the point that you just made, Jefferies saying that a lot of that has already been baked in. There's been concern about how quickly that recovery has been picking up, not as quickly. But we've heard over and over in the second half of the year, at least the China reopening story is likely to accelerate.

Now, [INAUDIBLE] lot of that has already been priced in, at least according to the analyst at Jefferies. And you see right there, hold rating with a price target of $65 a share on Las Vegas Sands.