The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared 85 points, or 0.63%, to 13,596. The blue-chip index has been up for five days out of six.
The S&P 500 advanced 8 points, or 0.56%, to 1,481. The benchmark index traded at a five-year high at its intraday high of 1485.16.
The Nasdaq tacked on 18 points, or 0.59%, to 3,136.
In economic news, the Labor Department reported Thursday that initial jobless claims for the week ended Jan. 12 were 335,000, a decrease of 37,000 from the previous week's upwardly revised figure of 372,000 and the lowest since Jan. 19, 2008. The four-week moving average was 359,250, a decrease of 6,750 from the previous week's average of 366,000.
On average, economists were expecting initial jobless claims to slide to
365,000 and continuing claims to increase to 3.159 million. Also, the Census Bureau said housing starts rose in December to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 954,000 from a downwardly revised 851,000 in November.
Building permits rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 903,000 from an upwardly revised 900,000. Economists were expecting housing starts to rise to a rate of 890,000 and building permits to come in at a rate of 903,000. These data points were offsetting an unexpected negative read in the Philadelphia Federal Reserve's Business Outlook survey.
Manufacturing activity contracted in the Philadelphia region in January as the Philly Fed's Business Outlook Survey fell to minus 5.8 in January from a sharply downwardly revised 4.6 in December. Economists were expecting a positive read of 5.8 for January.
Gold for February delivery rose $7.60 to settle at $1,690.80 an ounce at the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, while February crude oil futures increased $1.25 to close at $95.49. The benchmark 10- year Treasury was down 17/32 to raise the yield to 1.886%. The dollar was down 0.18%, according to the U.S. dollar index.
No comments:
Post a Comment