US stocks rose on Thursday as investors digested a stronger-than-expected monthly employment report amid a growing number of new cases of coronavirus.
The US financial markets will be closed on Friday and the bond market will close an hour earlier at 2 pm ET on Thursday, and the Independence Day holiday will be observed on Friday instead of 4. July.
How are the benchmarks working?
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA,
it was up 313 points, or 1.2%, to trade near 26,048, while the S&P 500 SPX index,
added 36 points, 1.2%, to reach 3,152. The Nasdaq COMP Composite Index,
It gained 121 points, 1.2%, and was trading near 10,276 mid-morning.
For the holiday shortened week, the Dow is up 2.9%, the S&P 500 is on track to return 3.6%, while the Nasdaq Composite Index pointed to a weekly return of 4.1% as of Wednesday’s close.
What is driving the market?
The United States added 4.8 million jobs in June compared to expectations for a 3.7 million increase and the unemployment rate fell for the second consecutive month to 11.1%, but the recovery from the coronavirus economy could already be suffering a setback of a further increase in cases. .
Millions of Americans have returned to work since states began reopening business in May, but the economy has a long way to go to get back to normal. The United States lost more than 22 million jobs during the height of the pandemic and only restored 7.5 million in the past two months.
Meanwhile, in weekly data also released on Thursday, new claims for traditional unemployment benefits continued to slow, falling to 14.3 million in the seven days ended June 27 from 1.48 million in the prior week. However, the number of people who received traditional unemployment benefits increased 59,000 in the week ending June 20 to 19.29 million.
“The 4.8 million additional jobs in June, added to the 2.5 million added unexpectedly in May, have upset investor sentiment, for both US stocks and the dollar,” said Ulas Akincilar, chief operating officer. from the online trading platform INFINOX.
However, the United States saw 52,000 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, a new record for a day in the United States, and some states have had to shut down business again as a result.
If the ups and downs of the June market felt like a ping pong match, it was because it marked a phase of market consolidation, said Katie Stockton, market technician and founder of Fairlead Strategies.
The sell-off in early June, followed by a few weeks of consolidation, was “healthy as it eased overbought conditions,” Stockton said in an interview. “Now we are becoming a little more constructive, although there is still what I would consider a healthy level of skepticism.” That can fuel an uptrend, whether it makes fundamental sense or not. “
Look for headlines and sentiments to drive the market forward, Stockton said, as investors feel “we don’t have visibility into the fundamentals of the economy.”
In other economic reports on Thursday, a factory order reading showed a 0.8% rise in May, the first in three months.
What actions are in focus?
- Actions of Tesla Inc.
TSLA,
+ 6.53%
It jumped 8% after a Wedbush analyst raised his stock price target to $ 2,000. - Paypal Inc. share PYPL,
+ 0.47%
They were 0.2% higher in the morning stock after an analyst raised their stock price target to $ 200 from $ 176. - Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc. ALXN,
+ 0.20%
The shares rose 0.3% after the Securities and Exchange Commission said the company would pay $ 21 million to settle the charges it paid to Russian and Turkish officials to promote its immunosuppressive drug Soliris. - Actions of Alaska Air Group Inc.
ALK
+ 2.29%
it increased more than 3% after the airline said it had secured $ 1.2 billion in private funds.
How are other assets working?
West Texas US Intermediate Crude CLQ20,
For August, deliveries increased 57 cents, 1.4%, to $ 40.39 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, in part thanks to declining inventories. In precious metals, GCQ20 August gold futures,
it increased $ 6.80, or 0.4%, to $ 1,786.70 an ounce.
The 10-year Treasury note yields TMUBMUSD10Y,
It rose 1 basis point 0.688% after the strong jobs report pushed investors into riskier assets. Bond prices move inversely to yields.
The dollar fell 0.1% against a basket of its main rivals, based on trade in the ICE US Dollar Index DXY,
In European equities, the Stoxx Europe 600 SXXP index,
roared 2.1% higher, and London’s FTSE 100 UKX,
up 1.6%.
In the Asian markets overnight, the Japanese Nikkei NIK,
rose 0.1%, Hang Seng HSI of Hong Kong,
strangled almost 3% higher, and the Shanghai Composite Index SHCOMP,
closed up to 2.1%.
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