US markets end sharply higher on Thursday

09 Aug 2024 Evaluate

The US markets ended sharply higher on Thursday with Nasdaq settling higher by over 460 points after the Labor Department released a report showing first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits pulled back by more than expected in the week ended August 3rd. The report said initial jobless claims fell to 233,000, a decrease of 17,000 from the previous week's revised level of to 250,000. Street had expected jobless claims to edge down to 240,000 from the 249,000 originally reported for the previous week. The bigger than expected decline came a week after jobless claims reached their highest level since hitting 258,000 in the week ended August 5, 2023.

The data helped ease concerns about the strength of the labor market, which have contributed to recent selling on Wall Street. On the sectoral front, networking stocks turned in some of the market's best performances on the day, resulting in an 8.4 percent spike by the NYSE Arca Networking Index. Substantial strength was also visible among semiconductor stocks, as reflected by the 6.9 percent surge by the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index. Shares of Lattice Semiconductor (LSCC) soared by 13.3 percent after Raymond James upgraded its rating on the company's stock to Outperform from Market Perform. Pharmaceutical stocks also saw considerable strength on the upbeat results from Eli Lilly, with the NYSE Arca Pharmaceutical Index jumping by 3.6 percent.

Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 683.04 points or 1.76 percent to 39,446.49, Nasdaq gained 464.21 points or 2.87 percent to 16,660.02 and S&P 500 was up by 119.81 points or 2.3 percent to 5,319.31.

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