US: Stocks close higher after grim week

WALL Street stocks bounced Thursday (Dec 29), as markets attempted a last minute rally after gloomy trading sessions this week.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 1.1 per cent up at 33,220.80.

The broad-based S&P 500 jumped 1.8 per cent to 3,849.28, and the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index rose 2.6 per cent to 10,478.09.

This came as investors digested higher-than-anticipated jobless claims data, suggesting the world’s biggest economy could be cooling.

Initial jobless claims for the week ending Dec 24 rose to 225,000, as the Federal Reserve pushes on with efforts to bring down soaring inflation.

Meanwhile, continuing unemployment claims for the week ending Dec 17 also picked up.

But trading volumes are thin during the holiday season, and this could “emphasise the size of moves” in stock markets, said Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote Bank.

News flow remains slow in recent days as well.

Helping the rally was the heavyweight Information Technology sector, rebounding from a drop that weighed on markets this week, said a note from financial services firm Charles Schwab earlier Thursday.

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Apple rose 2.8 per cent, Meta was up four per cent, while Alphabet gained 2.9 per cent.

But overall, markets “continue to wrestle with the ultimate impact of aggressive Fed actions to try to combat inflation”, the note by Charles Schwab added. AFP