Investing.com – Wall Street traded higher on Thursday as markets appeared to rule out the possibility of a Brexit, as a vote for the U.K. to leave the European Union (EU) is known, ahead of official results that will not begin to filter in until the early morning hours on Friday.
At 15:46GMT or 11:46AM ET, the Dow 30 rose 175 points, or 0.99%, the S&P 500 traded up 20 points, or 0.99%, while the tech-heavy NASDAQ Composite advanced 55 points, or 1.13%.
Markets showed anything but the jitters despite the fact that voting on the EU referendum was well underway on Thursday.
Recent polls had seen the Remain camp move ahead, but most surveys showed the race to be a close contest.
However, online betting firm Betfair said the odds, currently at 85%, that the U.K. decides to stay in the EU moving up on Thursday.
The polls will not even close in Britain until 21:00GMT, or 17:00ET, with the final count completion not expected until at least 6:00AM GMT, or 2:00AM ET, on Friday.
Yet, in mid-day European trading, the FTSE hit a two-month high and the pound pushed past $1.49 for the first time since last December.
Nevertheless, as U.S. desks began early trading, some caution seemed to be shown with both the London stock exchange and sterling moving off intraday highs.
London traders were planning to work through the night with several brokers having warned that volatility and high volumes could make trading difficult.
All of the above, as market participants digested several data points stateside.
The number of people who filed for unemployment assistance in the U.S. last week fell more than expected, with new claims settling at 259,000 .
Activity in the U.S. manufacturing sector registered a larger-than-expected expansion in June, with the Markit’s flash manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rising to 51.4, although market research group’s chief economist Chris Williamson signaled that the sector still looked to be a drag on the economy in the second quarter.
“Despite the improvement in the current month, the three months to June has seen the worst quarter for manufacturing in terms of both production and employment growth since 2009,” he said.
Meanwhile, U.S. new home sales fell back from a more-than-eight-year high in May, with prior readings suffering a downward revision.
In any case, and despite the dovish comments from Federal Reserve (Fed) chair Janet Yellen this week, market expectations for future rate hikes did tick higher on Thursday.
According to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool, the odds for a July hike increased to 14.3%, from the prior day’s 9.5%. Regardless, markets were still expecting December to be the most likely month for a move as the probability rose to 54.5%, from 52.6%.
Oil too seemed to grow more cautious, pulling off intraday highs, as traders moved into the European close,.
U.S. crude futures gained 0.71% to $49.48 by 15:48GMT, or 11:48AM ET, while Brent oil traded up 0.76% to $50.26.
In company news, Barnes & Noble (NYSE:BKS) soared more than 9% after forecasting comparable sales would be flat or up 1% in its current fiscal year.
Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) jumped more than 3% after news that it would soon announce more deals to stream live events after successful advertising demand from NFL games it plans to air this season.
BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TO:BB) rose almost 3% in New York trade after surprising investors expecting a quarterly loss by breaking even.
Despite worse than expected earnings, Bed Bath & Beyond (NASDAQ:BBBY) managed to gain more than 1% thanks to reaffirming its outlook.
On the downside, Red Hat slumped almost 4% after giving a disappointing outlook for the current quarter.