Investing.com – U.S. stocks closed higher as President Donald Trump nominated Governor Jerome Powell to lead the U.S. central bank while bullish labor market data raised optimism for a strong employment report due Friday.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed higher at 23,515.67. The S&P 500 closed 0.02% higher while the Nasdaq Composite closed at 6714.94, roughly flat.
As expected, U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday announced that Federal Reserve Governor Jerome Powell is his nominee to be the next chairman of the U.S. central bank.
The decision came after investors had to contend with several market-moving events as the House of Republican tax plan was unveiled while upbeat labor market reports pointed to underlying strength in the U.S. economy.
The U.S. Department of Labor reported Thursday that initial jobless claims fell 5,000 to a seasonally adjusted 229,000 for the week ended Oct. 28, a steeper drop than economist had expected.
In a separate report, the Labor Department said that nonfarm productivity, which measures hourly output per worker, rose at a 3% annualized rate, outpacing economists’ forecasts of 2.4%.
On the corporate front, shares of both Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) and Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) fell as the latter revealed earnings late Wednesday that fell short expectations.
Tesla suffered its worst financial quarter ever, posting a $610 million loss as it struggled to reach its long-stated goal of producing 5,000 Model 3 cars per week in 2017.
“While we continue to make significant progress each week in fixing Model 3 bottlenecks, the nature of manufacturing challenges during a ramp such as this makes it difficult to predict exactly how long it will take for all bottlenecks to be cleared or when new ones will appear,” the company said.
Investor optimism on corporate earnings remained bullish as data showed more than 73% of the companies that reported so far have topped Wall Street estimates. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) is slated to released earnings after US markets close.
'Bulls and Bears' on Wall Street
The top Dow gainers for the session: Boeing (NYSE:BA) up 1.6%, United technologies up 1.1% and Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) up 1.1%
DowDuPont Inc (NYSE:DWDP), down 1.7%, Home Depot (NYSE:HD) down 1.6% and Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) down 1.2%, were among the worst Dow performers of the session.