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Stocks - Wall Street Opens Higher as Initial Jobless Claims Slow Further

Published 05/07/2020, 09:28 AM
Updated 05/07/2020, 09:35 AM
© Reuters.
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By Geoffrey Smith 

Investing.com -- U.S. stock markets opened smartly higher on Thursday as the number of people filing initial claims for jobless benefits slowed for a fifth straight week.

Initial claims fell to 'only' 3.17 million in the week to Friday, the lowest since states began to close their economies at the end of March in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, continuing claims rose faster than expected to a new record of 22.65 million, well above the 19.99 million expected by analysts ahead of time. The market reaction suggests that such unprecedented numbers of jobless claims have lost their ability to shock a market more focused on the reopening of the economy.%.

By 10:10 AM ET (1410 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 288 points, or 1.2% at 23,953 points, while the S&P 500 was up 1.2% and the Nasdaq Composite was up 1.1%.

The breakdown of stock movements again reflected the triumph of the online world over the physical one, as investors upped their bets on Internet- and electronic-based technology. 

PayPal  (NASDAQ:PYPL) stock surged 12.8% to a new record high after the company promised a strong second quarter, reflecting the surge in e-commerce volumes caused by lockdown measures. It’s now up some 50% from March’s low. Fellow payments company Square  (NYSE:SQ) rose 7.0% on similar grounds.

Likewise, exercise bike maker Peloton (NASDAQ:PTON) leaped 11.4% after maker of fitness bikes reduced its net loss to 2 cents a share in the first quarter as the pandemic and related lockdown measures drove a boom in working out from home, while Nintendo ADRs rose 3.0% after a strong performance in the three months to March by its Switch (NYSE:SWCH) consoles (due largely to the Animals Crossing game). And DraftKings (NASDAQ:DKNG) stock rose 8.1%, even as the fantasy sports platform's core shareholders prepared to dump a large block of stock on the market.

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It was a different story in the real world, with Spirit Airlines (NYSE:SAVE) slumping 8.5% as it raced to raise capital through new shares and convertible debt. And Danaher (NYSE:DHR) stock fell 3.8% after the maker of medical devices began a placement of $2.5 billion in new capital, split equally between common stock and mandatory convertible preferred stock.

Elsewhere, Raytheon (NYSE:RTN) stock rose 1.0% after beating expectations for the first quarter of the year. The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on its newly-acquired Pratt & Whitney business was less than feared.  

 

Latest comments

I'm pretty sure the market tells us what it should be, not the other way round
These past few weeks experienced the worst market manipulation EVER. The indexes should be 20-25% lower than they are. The headlines go from bad to worse and the markets are up 25% since beginning April. ***!!
What do you want? Half the country is already unemployed.
fact - "Initial Jobless Claims" more than expected Title - Initial Jobless Claims slow further.  therefore market should go up China reports great exports in April when world was in lock-down therefore it's obvious data is false (china wants to show it's production is back) but market is up on this false news. It sees the Moto in the today's market is "fake it till you make it"
and faking works, sadly we all will pay for this with our hard earned money.
How does this headline even make sense? "Wall street higher on worst economy since the great depression"...
Trump never dissapoints with failure after failure. screws up pandemic response and soon 100k Americans are dead, leading the world by far! Biden2020
You serious? Biden can't even dress himself
We are watching here is the economy of the 1 or 2 percent of the richest. Indeed for them it's something to applaud, rest of us will pay with hard earned money for all this fed pumping. Somebody please take away this kiddy pump from Powell.
Yes, of course. In the next weeks we will reach even 0. At that point S&P will reach 8000000 because no jobless claims have been raised. Then you will realize that nobody has a job anymore. Think before writing... unbelievable!!!!
They won't realize that, welcome to the TWILIGHT ZONE, I can hear that music already.
over the years us has developed a habit of celebration , even in this hour of crises, it maintains this habit though  with a difference, this time they are celebrating higher job less claims, as indices are rallying high
How many stocks are really going up these past weeks withing the SP500? Just a few techs that have a big influence on the index...the markets are not reflecting the real economy and the indexes themselves neither as the majority of the stocks are going dow
I read somewhere that in Venezuela the markets reached all time high records when their economy collapsed, may be same thing happening here.
everyone should just stop working. Dow to 50k! Thanks comrade Powell
it's not recession, it is not created by over burden on economics fundamentals, it aggravated the under lying recession since few months back. It is the favourable hope that every entity will come up with more energy.
Thank you,you are right
Trump should use his Total Authority to reopen the economy, because clearly his administration's virus responses were the best work they done upto now......tomorrow, blame fake news for inflating the death figures
Why U Are Taking This Too Much Serious Just See The Dow Jones & Nasdaq Trying To Make It's New High...
Only 3.1 million jobs lost this week...LOL and over 30 million jobs lost in 7 weeks....wow we must be entering a total recovery....what a joke. GDP 3 QTR on pace to be -30%, lets be serious we are in a great depression!Stock Market rally makes total sense.
Yes! Only 3mil, it is declining, recession is ....eeh....nevermind, hope is ahead....LOL
Every such article needs to be short and Dow to the point and read such as: The Fed pumped and the market went up again despite grim economic data and laughable openings.
Only 23 million. I think we should all buy. Go long. It all looks very good to me.
Yea, that's a good news indeed, instead of 3.5 million now it's only 3.1 million, and the grand total is 30 million. The Fed and and this stock market is comical, most would agree that they should just stop this pumping.
Proves 3 Trillion went to the wrong people.  Great job Powell.  You will be the cause of the US crash!!
All this shows is that the relief money went to the wrong people. Pigs should get slaughtered!
Fake numbers across the world
How does a panel of Economists who predicted an average X number, get diverged so widely in the real numbers?
Wall Street opens higher on unicorn farts and. pending bankruptcies. Wall Street saw an opportunity today in all the default that is coming. The rush of being a bartender of a stock whose value goes to zero.
*bagholder
It would be interesting to know how often the reasons given to why the market goes up or down by these headlines are correct... T_T
It used "as" in the sentence, not "because". So it doesn't have to be causality
the stock market is disconnected from the real world. Fed pumps money that goes to market, not people
New claims is meaningless. Focus on continuing claims, US has now 8% population thats out of jobs.
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