US markets closed mostly higher; Nasdaq post minor loss

03 Nov 2017 Evaluate

The US markets closed mostly higher on Thursday, as the much-anticipated tax plan by House Republicans was unveiled and as President Donald Trump nominated Fed. Governor Jerome Powell to run the Federal Reserve, as had been widely expected. House Republicans introduced the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which is aimed at cutting corporate taxes and repealing taxes paid by large estates. However, it is unclear when and if the bill will pass. Hopes for tax cuts have been credited for some market gains over the past year. However, Thursday’s bill details sent stocks, bonds yields and the dollar lower as traders weighed its chances of passage and its composition. Separately, Trump nominated Powell to replace Chairwoman Janet Yellen, whose term ends in February. He is viewed as a nominee who will be measured in his approach to raising borrowing costs and who also is favorable to scaling back Wall Street regulations.

On the economy front, initial US jobless claims, a tool to measure layoffs, fell by 5,000 to 229,000 in the week ended October 28. The more stable monthly average of claims declined by 7,250 to 232,500 and hit the lowest level since April 1973. The number of people already collecting unemployment benefits, known as continuing claims, dropped by 15,000 to 1.88 million. That’s the lowest level since December 1973. The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell back to precession lows even though new claims in Puerto Rico doubled. The island has begun processing more applications with the help of the mainland while it struggles to restore its devastated power grid. Jobless claims haven’t been this low since the early 1970s despite a huge gain in the working population.

Meanwhile, the productivity of American firms and workers rose at a 3% annual clip in the third quarter. Output jumped 3.8% and hours worked rose 0.8%. Hourly compensation climbed 3.5%. Unit-labor costs rose 0.5%, but they’ve actually fallen slightly over the past year. Consider manufacturing. Productivity in the manufacturing sector sank 5% to mark the biggest drop since 2009 even though companies are growing at the fastest pace in years. The big gain in the third quarter is a welcome sign, but productivity has been unusually weak in the past decade. Productivity rose by an average of just 1.2% from 2007 to 2016, below the average 2.6% gain from 2000 to 2007.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 81.25 points or 0.35 percent to 23,516.26, the S&P 500 edged higher by 0.49 points or 0.02 percent to 2,579.85, while the Nasdaq dropped 1.59 points or 0.02 percent to 6,714.94.

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MoneyWorks4Me is a SEBI-registered Investment Adviser (IA) dedicated to helping investors build long-term wealth through transparent, research-driven, conflict-free guidance. Founded in 2008, we started our journey as a Research Analyst (RA), providing deep fundamental analysis, intrinsic value insights, and long-term investing frameworks for Indian equities. In 2017, we transitioned to a full-fledged SEBI-registered Investment Adviser, strengthening our commitment to acting as a fiduciary—always putting the investor’s interest first.

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