Stocks rallied slightly on Wall Street Thursday as markets remained concerned about the prospect of more aggressive action from the Federal Reserve to fight inflation.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 was up 0.3% as of 10:16 a.m. Eastern. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 66 points, or 0.2%, to 32,864 and the Nasdaq rose 0.3%.
Energy stocks were among the biggest gainers as US crude oil prices rose 1%. ExxonMobil rose 1.5%.
The gains come two days after Fed Chairman Jerome Powell testified before Congress that the central bank is ready to make big rate hikes if necessary. Fears of a continued aggressive Fed weighed on major indices, all heading for weekly losses.
The Fed’s anti-inflation policy threatens to slow the economy too much and push it into recession, while at the same time going too far by undermining a strong labor market and putting many people out of work.
A government report on Thursday showed that the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits rose the most in five months last week, but layoffs remained at an all-time low.
Yields on two-year government bonds, which typically track expectations for future Fed action, fell from around 5.05% just before the unemployment report was released to 4.97%. It was at its highest level since 2007.
The unemployment data follows a report from Wednesday that showed the number of advertised jobs nationwide last month was higher than economists had expected. The U.S. government’s broader hiring report is scheduled for Friday.
Wall Street looked at a slew of data that revealed both a resilient economy and persistent inflation. Traders are advising the Fed to raise rates by 0.50 percentage point on March 22. According to CME Group data, they had expected the central bank to maintain a smaller hike of 0.25 points prior to Powell’s testimony this week.
Markets in Europe and Asia were mostly lower.
AP writers Joe McDonald and Matt Ott contributed to this report.
Source: LA Times