Wall Street ends higher as investors eye upcoming jobs data
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[April 07, 2023] By
Noel Randewich and Ankika Biswas
(Reuters) - Major U.S. stock indexes ended higher on Thursday, helped by
a rally in Alphabet shares as investors, worried about a slowing
economy, looked to upcoming jobs data.
Alphabet Inc rallied 3.8% and Microsoft climbed 2.6%, with both
providing more fuel than any other stocks for the S&P 500's gain for the
session. Alphabet's Google unit plans to add artificial intelligence
features to its search engine, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Adding to recent data hinting at a weak labor market, initial jobless
claims fell to a seasonally adjusted 228,000 for the week ended April 1,
versus expectations of 200,000 claims.
The Labor Department's data from the prior week was revised to show
48,000 more applications were received.
The S&P 500 climbed 0.36% to end the session at 4,105.02 points.
The Nasdaq gained 0.76% to 12,087.96 points, while the Dow Jones
Industrial Average rose 0.01% to 33,485.29 points.
Wall Street has lost ground in recent days in response to signs of a
slowing economy, including weak data on private payrolls and job
openings earlier this week.
That marked a change from recent months, when investors cheered weak
economic data on the basis that it might mean the Fed's interest rate
hikes were working and that the Fed could ease up on its campaign to
rein in decades-high inflation.
Interest rate futures imply traders are divided about whether the Fed
will raise its target rate or keep it steady at its upcoming May
meeting, according to CME Group's Fedwatch tool.
"The market is trying to decide whether the 'growth and recession' scare
or the 'Fed hiking' scare are more meaningful to prices, and so it's
waffling between whether a softening labor market is good news because
it gets the Fed to pause in May or bad news because it means the
recession is actually coming," said Ross Mayfield, an investment
strategy analyst at Baird in Louisville, Kentucky.
Investors are now focused on the more comprehensive report on non-farm
payrolls, which are expected to have increased by 239,000 in March, down
from the 311,000 jobs added in the prior month. That report is due on
Friday, when the U.S. stock market will be closed for the Good Friday
holiday.
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Traders work on the trading floor at the
New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., March 31,
2023. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly
Of the 11 S&P 500 sector indexes, eight rose, led by communication
services, up 1.71%, followed by a 0.74% gain in utilities.
With some investors away during a shortened holiday week, volume on
U.S. exchanges was relatively light, with 9 billion shares traded,
compared to an average of 12.7 billion shares over the previous 20
sessions.
For the week, the S&P 500 declined 0.1%, the Dow added 0.6% and the
Nasdaq lost 1.1%.
In Thursday's trading, Caterpillar, viewed as a bellwether for the
industrial sector, dipped 2%, bringing its loss over the past three
days to 9% as investors fretted about a potential economic downturn.
AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc surged 21% after a U.S. court denied
the theater operator's request to lift a status quo order necessary
for its plan to convert preferred shares to common shares.
Levi Strauss & Co tumbled 16% after the apparel maker posted a fall
in quarterly profit.
Big banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co and Citigroup will be among
companies kicking off the quarterly reporting season next week, with
investors eager for updates on the health of the sector after a
recent banking crisis.
Analysts on average expect aggregate S&P 500 company earnings for
the first quarter to have fallen 5% year-over-year, according to
Refinitiv I/B/E/S.
Advancing issues outnumbered falling ones within the S&P 500 by a
1.2-to-one ratio.
The S&P 500 posted six new highs and no new lows; the Nasdaq
recorded 46 new highs and 177 new lows.
(Reporting by Ankika Biswas and Amruta Khandekar in Bengaluru, and
by Noel Randewich in Oakland, Calif.; Editing by Anil D'Silva, Arun
Koyyur, Shounak Dasgupta and Deepa Babington)
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