March 29, 2024

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Stocks add to weekly gains, pushing S&P 500 back to record | National News

2 min read

Stocks were moderately higher in morning trading Thursday, helped by some modestly positive economic data as well as a continued belief that the U.S. economy is recovering from the pandemic and that inflation, while higher than usual, will not be a long-term problem.

The S&P 500 index rose 0.6% as of 11 a.m. Eastern. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.7% and the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.8%.

Markets have calmed notably since the Federal Reserve surprised investors last week by saying it could start raising short-term interest rates by late 2023, earlier than expected, if recent high inflation persists.

The super-low rates the Fed engineered to carry the economy through the pandemic have propped up prices across markets, and any change would be a big deal, so the Fed’s announcement triggered selling of stocks and a rise in Treasury yields last week. However that selling reversed this week. The three major indexes are all up more than 2% this week and are once again near records.

Investors had little negative reaction to a report that showed that 411,000 Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week, down 7,000 from the week before. That was a much more modest decline than investors had expected, and the second week in a row where unemployment benefits claims stalled after declining steadily for months.

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