Wall St gains as jobless claims data eases rate worries

By Ankika Biswas

 and Amruta Khandekar

A trader works on the trading floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., December 14, 2022. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly

• Summary

• Companies

• U.S. weekly jobless claims show modest rise
• Tesla extends gains after Musk’s comment
• Indexes up: Dow 0.80%, S&P 1.23%, Nasdaq 1.73%

Dec 29 (Reuters) – Technology and growth stocks lifted Wall Street’s main indexes higher on Thursday after data pointing to signs of a cooling labor market eased worries over future interest rate hikes by the U.S. Federal Reserve.

Megacap stocks Apple Inc (AAPL.O), Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O), Microsoft (MSFT.O) and Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) gained between 1.5% and 3%, also helped by a decline in the 10-year Treasury yield .

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All the major S&P 500 sectoral indexes rose, with consumer discretionary (.SPLRCD) and information technology (.SPLRCT) up 1.8% and 1.9%, respectively.

The U.S. Labor Department’s report showed initial claims for unemployment benefits rose 9,000 to a seasonally adjusted 225,000 for the week ended Dec. 24. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 225,000 claims for the latest week.

The report hinted at some softening in an otherwise tight labor market, bolstering hopes that the U.S. central bank would dial down its aggressive monetary policy stance.

“Signs of the job market beginning to weaken is certainly apparent,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist, Spartan Capital Securities LLC.

“We’re at the end of the year and of course, the market has not performed well. We’re seeing some bargain hunting coming in today.”

Traders held on to bets of a 25 basis point rate hike from the Federal Reserve in February and see rates peaking at 4.92% in June 2023. .