All three major U.S. stock indexes closed up ahead of the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday, with tech and tech-adjacent momentum stocks providing much of the lift
U.S. stocks closed higher on Wednesday, led by interest rate-sensitive megacaps as economic data indicated the labour market is not cooling as quickly as markets, or the Fed, might prefer.
All three major U.S. stock indexes closed up ahead of the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday, with tech and tech-adjacent momentum stocks providing much of the lift.
It is a standard day-before-Thanksgiving rally, with light volume and a moderately upward bias, said Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist at Carson Group in Omaha. But really, that is kind of a microcosm for this entire year.
After Tuesday’s closing bell, chipmaker Nvidia reported revenue well above Wall Street expectations, but its shares lost 2.5 per cent because of the firm’s downbeat China sales outlook.
A spate of economic data – including jobless claims, durable goods and consumer sentiment – indicated that the economy is softening after around 20 months of policy tightening from the Fed, but remains resilient enough to potentially avoid recession.
Market participants have started to shift their focus to the timing of the Fed’s first rate cut.
We can argue over when the potential first cut will come, but the bottom line is that the Federal Reserve has likely stopped hiking, Detrick said. So it will no longer be a headwind for equities going into next year.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 184.74 points, or 0.53 per cent, to 35,273.03, the S&P 500 added 18.43 points, or 0.41 per cent, to 4,556.62 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 65.88 points, or 0.46 per cent, to 14,265.86.
European stocks reached a two-month high, while a gauge of euro zone volatility slumped to its lowest level since July.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index gained 0.30 per cent and MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe added 0.14 per cent.
Emerging market stocks shed 0.56 per cent. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan ended 0.46 per cent down, while Japan’s Nikkei added 0.29 per cent.
