US Stock Market News: Dow Jones on course to end higher for 7th day, up over 600 pts this week
US Stock Market News Today: Wall Street made a positive start to the session on Thursday, May 9, with all three market benchmarks—the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite—registering gains of about half a per cent amid buying in realty, energy and consumer discretionary spaces though selling in select tech stocks played spoilsport. The 30-blue-chip index Dow Jones was on track to clinch its seventh straight higher closing, having settled above the psychologically important 39,000 mark for the first time in five weeks the previous day.
At its intraday high, the Dow Jones—whose 30 constituents include Amazon, Apple, Intel, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Goldman Sachs, Nike, Boeing and Visa—took its weekly gain to 616.3 points, as investors remained cautiously optimistic about the prospect of reductions in benchmark interest rates in 2024 itself amid a weaker-than-expected jobs market in the world’s largest economy.
At 1:14 pm EST (10:44 pm in India), the Dow Jones was up 224.5 points, or 0.6 per cent, at 39,280.9, the S&P 500 up 20.8 points, or 0.4 per cent, at 5,208.5, and the US tech stocks-heavy Nasdaq Composite at 16,357.5, up 54.7 points, or 0.3 per cent, from its previous close.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies was also up, with a gain of 11.2 points, or 0.6 per cent, at 2,066.4.
Investors awaited for Fed official Mary C Daly, scheduled to speak later in the day, along with a natural gas update from the US EIA, the primary source of energy information for the US government, for cues.
Meanwhile, the BoE’s rate-deciding panel voted 7:2 to keep key interest rates at 5.25 per cent, a 16-year high, with Governor Andrew Bailey being “optimistic that things are moving in the right direction”. Read more on BoE’s decision to hold key rate
Barring Visa, McDonald’s, Cisco, IBM and Salesforce, down between 0.1 per cent and 1.6 per cent for the day, all Dow constituents were in the green.
Dow Jones top gainers
Stock | Trading Symbol | Price ($) | Change (%) |
Caterpillar Inc | 351.87 | 2.14 | |
Home Depot Inc | 345.7 | 2.03 | |
Amgen Inc | 313.23 | 1.93 | |
Amazon.com Inc | 190.59 | 1.38 | |
Goldman Sachs Group Inc | 452.96 | 1.34 | |
Chevron Corp | 164.41 | 1.15 | |
Dow Inc | 59.3 | 1.13 | |
Apple Inc | 184.4 | 0.91 | |
Travelers Companies Inc | 218.97 | 0.75 | |
American Express Co | 237.93 | 0.72 |
The US share market has risen handsomely over the past few days amid optimism the Fed will introduce reductions in benchmark interest rates this year itself, with rate cut bets supported by a weaker-than-expected jobs market in the world’s largest economy.
Global markets
European shares managed gains for yet another day despite a weak handover from their Asian peers. The pan-European Stoxx 600 was up one point, or 0.2 per cent, at 516.8 at the last count.
Earlier on Thursday, Asian stocks staged mixed moves, with Chinese benchmarks rising after the country reported better-than-expected monthly trade data.
Mumbai-market benchmarks Nifty50 and Sensex crashed about 1.5 per cent amid a sell-off across sectors barring auto stocks. Read more on the May 9 session
With inputs from agencies
Catch all the latest stock market updates here. For all other news related to business, politics, tech and auto, visit Zeebiz.com.