US stocks rose on Thursday in holiday-thinned trade, as investors digested the latest jobless claims, with the Dow and the S&P hitting record highs.
At 1605 GMT, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.1% at 36,529.54, the S&P 500 was 0.2% higher at 4,800.41 and the Nasdaq was 0.5% firmer at 15,841.97.
David Madden, market analyst at Equiti Capital said: “Stocks are largely in positive territory as traders continue to shake off the headlines about the rising number of patients with the omicron variant of the Covid-19 virus. It is worrying that case numbers are high, but the low hospitalisation rates are determining the mood in the markets.
“The pandemic has taken many twists and turns in the past two years, but ultimately the fear comes from the possibility of restrictions being imposed, and for the time being, it doesn’t seem as if governments are close to taking action that could cause major disruption to economies.
“At the beginning of the month, stocks were undergoing painful declines on account of skyrocketing case numbers, but when it because clear that hospitals were not going to be overrun by the new strain, traders were quick to pull a U-turn, and start snapping up stocks again.”
Figures out earlier from the Department of Labor showed that initial jobless claims came in at 198,000 for the week to December 25, below expectations of 208,000 but still strong. This followed last week’s print of 206,000, revised up from 205,000.
Continuous jobless claims dropped sharply to 1.716 million in the week ending December 18, the data showed, well below expectations for a small rise to 1.868m from the previous week’s 1.856m (which itself was revised down from 1.859M). The insured unemployment rate fell to 1.3% from 1.4% in the prior week.
The four-week moving average was 199,250, a decrease of 7,250 from the previous week’s revised average. This is the lowest level for this average since October 25, 1969 when it was 199,250. The previous week’s average was revised up by 250 from 206,250 to 206,500, the DoL said.
On the corporate front, Biogen shares slumped after Samsung denied a Korean media report that the US biotech was in talks to sell itself to the company.
