US Stock Market Rallied Ahead Of Thanksgiving





The US equities and bonds markets bounced back yesterday following the release of several encouraging economic reports. The rally in the markets occurred a day after a sell-off occurred due to the recent military conflict between North and South Korea. Traders initially found confidence when Germany’s business climate, as measured in the German Ifo business climate index, unexpectedly improved with the index rising to to 109.3 from 107.7. The index was initially seen to weaken to 107.6. Of course, this surprise came amid the current drama in Ireland which I will talk about in my next article so watch out for that!

Later, the buying gained more momentum when the latest initial jobless claims, which is the number of people who are applying for unemployment benefits from the state for the first time, in the US registered a much lower figure of 407,000 than the market’s 434,000 forecast. The previous week’s count was at 441,000. The market actually more weight on the improvement in the jobless claims versus the country’s durable goods orders which fell by 3.3% in October.

Earlier in the week, data showed that the US economy grew by 2.5% against the 2.0% estimate during the third quarter due to higher consumption which can partially attributed to the gains in employee wages. Given these, its apparent the US economy is slowly picking up speed.

To the end of the day, the Dow jumped by 1.31% while the broader S&P 500 soared by 1.93%. The Nasdaq, similarly, gained by 1.43% while the yield on the 10-year bond in the US closed higher by 0.1520 points to 2.9140%.