Stocks trade higher at the open, tech sees gains

Yahoo Finance Live’s Brad Smith breaks down how stocks are trading following the opening bell on Wednesday.

Video transcript

[BELL RINGS]

JULIE HYMAN: We've got the opening bell there in our market check here, sponsored by TastyTrade, as we look at that strength here coming out of the open this morning. And not anything just sort of disrupts some of the upward movement that we're watching for here on the major averages. So if you take a look here, you've got the Dow and the S&P trading higher.

The NASDAQ hasn't quite opened up yet because there are a lot more components in the NASDAQ composite than the S&P and the Dow. Takes it a little bit longer, on occasion, to get that opening level for that index. And there it is. It's up about 1.2%. So we're seeing more strength on the tech side.

Also interesting, again, to refer to our comments with Anastasia and our conversation. Tech is something that she likes right now. She's talking about a barbell strategy, with tech on the one hand and some more defensives on the other. So it seems like she's not the only one with that idea. We've talked with some other investors as of late who are starting to look at technology here.

So Brad, interesting to see that movement continue.

BRAD SMITH: I love a good barbell strategy.

JULIE HYMAN: Yeah.

BRAD SMITH: Let's take a look at the Dow Jones Industrial Average, up over the past three days. So this week, as we scratch hump day here and begin the trading session, we're about one minute into the activity, Dow Jones Industrial average up 7/10 of a percent, NASDAQ composite, as you mentioned, Julie, up by a little more than 1.2% right now out of the gate. And then the S&P 500, you're seeing that up by nearly a percent on the morning here.

Let's also take a look at some of the sectors within the S&P 500. 11 sectors, we've got them loaded up here on the screen for you, folks. We've got some green across all of those 11 sectors. As of right now, the leader on the day-- yep, just stay right there for a second. XLRE, you're seeing that hold onto gains and move higher, leading the S&P 500 11 sectors. And that's up by about 1 and 1/2 percent.

XLK, technology, also doing good on the day. That's up by about 1.3% out of the gate. Let's take a look at technology, speaking of this, with the heavily weighted NASDAQ 100 on the technology front, as you're seeing some of the biggest gainers there. Lulu, that'll really set up our conversation on the other side of the break, shares up higher as we kick off today's trading activity by about 13%.

And then taking a look at some of the Dow components as well, the Dow 30, really just one laggard right now, and that's Merck. Merck is down by about 2/10 of a percent. We'll dig a little bit more into that later on. But Intel actually leading the charge on the Dow Jones Industrial Average right now. So largely sea of green there, 29 out of 30. That's not too shabby.

JULIE HYMAN: Yeah, very interesting. I guess Micron not hurting matters when it comes to Intel and some of the other tech.