Market Recap: Thursday, August 27

Wall Street ended a choppy session on a mixed note Thursday, with major benchmarks struggling to extend their win streak as investors digested stubbornly high unemployment data — but took heart from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s pledge to try and nudge inflation higher.

Video Transcript

SEANA SMITH: Welcome back to "The Final Round" here on Yahoo Finance. I'm Seana Smith. We have stocks mixed here as we count down the final seconds of the trading day. The Dow and S&P both moving to the upside. Dow was up over 200 points earlier today, so well off its highs of the day. Right now on track to close just around 180 points to the upside.

S&P up just around a quarter of a percent. And the NASDAQ, though, is in the red, losing steam in the final hour of trading. The NASDAQ on track to close off just around 3/10 of a point-- of a percentage point, but still above 11,600.

[BELL RINGING]

And that does it for the trading day today. Again, Dow and S&P posting gains, both getting a boost after Fed Chair Jay Powell announced its policy of average inflation targeting. So we're seeing a bit of a reaction here in some sectors of the market.

Let's take a look at financials. Financials specifically getting a boost here today. A lot of the big bank names are closing to the upside. JPMorgan closing up just around 3%. Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citi all up just around 2%. Regional banks are also moving to the upside on this. The regional bank ETF KRE, that's closing up just over 2% today.

Also, taking a look at the response in the bond market, the 10-year rate climbing to just around 75 basis points, so right around 75. And the 30-year bond yield right around 150. Some of the sector action in addition to the financials today-- real estate and health care, those two sectors are the performers, both up over 1%.

And we also have to mention the reopening trade, because that's an outperformer in today's market. This, of course, comes on the heels of the news that we from Abbott. They have a new $5 test. You get results within 15 minutes. No lab equipment is required. So that's fueling the reopening trade.

Airlines and cruise lines amongst the big winners today. And then hotel chains also getting a boost. Hyatt, one name up just around 4%. And then we also have Marriott closing up around 5%.

I want to bring in my co-host for the next 30 minutes, Myles Udland. We're also joined by Yahoo Finance editor-in-chief Andy Serwer, along with Rick Newman, Akiko Fujita, and Jared Blikre. And Myles, let's go to you first just in terms of what your big takeaway from today's action and from Fed Chair Jay Powell's announcement?

MYLES UDLAND: Well, I think, as you mentioned, Jay Powell outlining that basically we're going to let any recovery that does come run hot. And then we get good news from Abbott that could potentially bring forward the timeline and smooth any bumps as that recovery gets underway. And I think also it's worth remembering, tomorrow's the last trading day of August. When we began this month, we talked a lot about the seasonal weakness we often see in August. August surprises coming up in the market in 2015, 2011, 2007.

So it has not been a great month for markets historically. And, of course, that was the exact opposite. S&P is up more than 7% so far this month. And it is yet another moment that I think is we hit an interim milestone here of sorts that we ought to take a step back and just sort of realize yet another way that the market has surprised not only present expectations, but what any-- even though they're limited-- any historical kind of analogs would have helped us, maybe the math that would have laid out for us has again been proven inadequate in this time.