By CNN Business
From CNN Business' Anneken Tappe
The Nasdaq Composite started September off with a new all-time high, finishing up 0.3%.
The S&P 500, which had been on track for a decisive record for much of the day, gave back its modest gains and ended the day flat.
The Dow was in the red all day and closed down 0.1%, or 48 points.
Jobs are the name of the game this week, and the ADP Employment Report kicked off this week’s labor market data with a big disappointment -- even though the market shrugged the bad news off.
From CNN Business' Paul R. La Monica
Bust out the old Gordon Gekko quotes. (I had a poster of the "Greed is Good" speech from "Wall Street" in my room when I was in high school in the late 80s. Prophetic, huh?) Anyway, with stocks inching higher Wednesday, the CNN Business Fear & Greed Index briefly edged back into greed mode before slipping once more into neutral.
There has been a stunning turnaround in investor sentiment since Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell suggested that the Fed will take a slower approach to tapering and raising interest rates. The lousy ADP jobs numbers reported Wednesday morning seem to validate that more cautious stance.
Growth stock investors were particularly jazzed by the latest economic data. Anything that keeps the Fed on the sidelines for longer is good news for tech stocks since lower rates make it cheaper for them to borrow money and also helps justify their pricey valuations.
The Nasdaq hit another new record high Wednesday, with top techs Apple (AAPL), Facebook (FB), Google owner Alphabet (GOOGL) and Adobe (ADBE) all notching all-time highs.
From CNN Business' Anneken Tappe
So the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite are on track to hit all-time highs today. There is no stopping this market. Or is there...
"We're overdue for a correction but what's been helping this market has been easy monetary policy and fiscal policy," said David Kelly, chief global strategist at JPMorgan (JPM) Asset Management.
The biggest risk policy-wise is what lawmakers in Washington will do next, Kelly said. While it's not as hard to infer what the Federal Reserve's plan is, that path Congress will take is much less clear.
Given that, "people should ask big questions, not 'when do i sell' but 'what do I own'," he said on the CNN Business digital live show Markets Now.
With some valuations looking expensive, "I think value stocks look cheaper than growth stocks," he said. And "stocks overseas are cheaper than in the United States," he added.
From CNN Business' Anneken Tappe
Actress Cameron Diaz and entrepreneur Katherine Power were sharing some wine, as friends would, when they came up for the idea for their clean wine company Avaline.
They were wondering "what's in the bottle? is it organic? is it meeting our standards as consumers," Diaz said on CNN Business' digital live show Markets Now.
"How we wanted to consume wine was very much how we consume other products," Diaz said.
"This clean disruption in beverage... we've seen it in so many categories," Power added.
Earlier this year, the co-founders closed a $9.5 million Series A funding round.
"We launched in the middle of the pandemic, which is both a blessing and a curse," Power said. For Avaline it has accelerated its direct-to-consumer business.
For future products, the business will follow its consumers, Power said.
From CNN Business' Anneken Tappe
Stocks are at record highs but it's not just the public market that is going... to the moon.
"The private market obviously has some reflection of what's gong on in the public market, that's why you see a big rush into IPOs," said Alan Patricof, Chairman and co-founder of Primetime Partners.
"I don't think I've ever seen the venture market as strong as it is today in terms of pricing, in terms of activity," he told Alison Kosik on the CNN Business digital live show Markets Now.
While there continues to be a lot of focus on the Millennial market, investors should also pay attention to the elderly market, which is growing and has a lot of money to spend, Patricof added.
From CNN Business' Anneken Tappe
It's lunchtime and the stock market is juuuuuust mixed, with the Dow trading barely in the red.
The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite are up 0.2% and 0.7%, respectively, putting them on track to surpass Monday's all-time highs.
The Dow is trading 0.1%, or 28 points lower.
From CNN Business' Paul R. La Monica
Brown-Forman (BF.B) has something to celebrate. The maker of Jack Daniel's is getting a big sales boost thanks to surging demand for higher-end bourbon as well as tequila.
The company reported that overall sales in its latest quarter were up more than 20% from a year ago. But what's really impressive is that consumers are paying up for pricier drinks than a standard bottle of Jack.
Sales for the company's premium bourbon segment, which include the Woodford Reserve and Old Forester brands, surged 34% from last year. And sales of Brown-Forman's Herradura, el Jimador and other tequila brands were up 32%.
Shares of Brown-Forman rose 3% on the news. But the company warned of continued challenges ahead because of supply chain issues that haven't been fully resolved.
“While we are optimistic the operating environment will continue to improve, we are closely monitoring the potential volatility associated with the evolving pandemic and continued supply chain disruptions," said CEO Lawson Whiting in the earnings release.
The company specifically cited supply issues with glass for bottles as one of the "the various constraints" on its business.
From CNN Business' Anneken Tappe
Good news for America's manufacturers: the sector expanded for the 15th month in a row in August, according to data from the Institute for Supply Management.
The manufacturing purchasing managers' index rose to 59.9, compared with 58.6 expected.
While the indexes tracking new orders, production and inventories rose, the prices index declined, falling to its lowest level since December.
Even though the report sounds buoyant, it masks that manufacturers still struggle to meet rising demand.
All segments of the manufacturing economy are impacted by record-long raw-materials lead times, continued shortages of critical basic materials, rising commodities prices and difficulties in transporting products," said Timothy R. Fiore, chair of the ISM Manufacturing Business Survey Committee.
Disruptions from rising infections in Southeast Asia are weighing on the global supply chain.
"The new surges of Covid-19 are adding to pandemic-related issues — worker absenteeism, short-term shutdowns due to parts shortages, difficulties in filling open positions and overseas supply chain problems — that continue to limit manufacturing-growth potential," said Fiore.
From CNN Business' Anneken Tappe
Wall Street started September mostly in the green Wednesday. All three major stock indexes rising in spite of weaker-than-expected economic data.
The ADP Employment Report fell short of analyst expectations for a second month in a row. The miss comes ahead of Friday’s government jobs report but didn’t rattle markets much early Wednesday.