US: Stocks close higher as fears of banking crisis ease

WALL Street stocks climbed on Thursday (Mar 30) as markets calmed after recent banking sector turmoil.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.4 per cent to 32,859.03, while the broad-based S&P 500 picked up by 0.6 per cent to 4,050.83.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 0.7 per cent to 12,013.47.

While investors have been wary since federal officials seized control of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) earlier this month — marking the collapse of one of three midsized lenders — there have not been more US casualties since then.

This raised hopes that the emergency steps taken by regulators and private lenders have staved off contagion.

On Thursday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told a conference that recent events including the banking sector turmoil “remind us of the urgent need to complete unfinished business”.

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This includes finalising post-crisis reforms and considering “whether deregulation may have gone too far”.

President Joe Biden also called on banking regulators to reinstate tougher rules on midsized banks, saying that doing so would prevent future failures like that of SVB.

Meanwhile, weekly jobless claims figures released Thursday edged slightly higher, fuelling hopes that the Federal Reserve could soon ease on interest rate hikes if the labor market cools further. AFP