U.S. market indexes reached new highs on Thursday as stocks continued to gain.
For the day the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 18,506.41 for a gain of 134.29 points or 0.73%. The Standard & Poor's 500 was also higher, closing at 2,163.75 for a gain of 11.32 points or 0.53%. The Nasdaq Composite closed higher at 5,034.06 for a gain of 28.33 points or 0.57%. The VIX Volatility Index was lower for the day at 12.81 for a loss of 0.23 points or 1.76%.
In the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the following stocks led gains:
- Goldman Sachs (GS, Financial) 2.93%.
- Apple (AAPL, Financial) 1.97%.
- Pfizer (PFE, Financial) 1.69%.
- JPMorgan (JPM, Financial) 1.55%.
- IBM (IBM, Financial) 1.37%.
On Thursday, the two leading economic reports were Jobless Claims and the Producer Price Index. Jobless claims were unchanged for the week, keeping the total number of claims at 254,000. The Producer Price Index was slightly higher for the month, increasing 0.5%, which was above consensus of 0.3%. The year-over-year Producer Price Index inflation level is at 0.3%.
Stocks continued to reach new highs on Thursday fueled mostly by a substantial earnings beat from JPMorgan. Top sectors for the broad market were financial, materials, industrial and technology.
In a CNBC report, market specialists discussed the outlook for the second quarter’s earnings, which are expected to be slightly better than the previous quarter when excluding energy.
Disclosure: I do not own any stocks included in this article.
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