Optimism increased on US stock exchanges – and oil prices fell amid rumours

The leading US stock indexes on Wall Street opened unchanged Thursday afternoon, but after two hours of trading the mood improved and at closing time it looked like this:

• The broad S&P 500 index rose 0.62 percent.
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased by 0.50 percent.
• The Nasdaq Technology Index rose 1.02 percent.

This comes after the collapse of the indices on Wednesday evening, with a noticeable decrease for the Nasdaq index and a slight increase for the Dow Jones index.

It should also be noted that the so-called volatility index, also called the fear index, has now fallen to its lowest level since before the pandemic.

Disappointing jobs numbers lowered interest rates

Thursday morning released weekly jobs numbers showing that there were 261,000 new applications for unemployment benefits last week, slightly more than expected. But the jobs numbers have been a bit choppy lately, and just before the weekend there were very strong job creation numbers in the US in May.

The weak job numbers may have contributed to the stock market rally as it could indicate that wage pressure and inflation in the economy is declining.

US Treasury yields fell slightly after disappointing labor market data.

Interest rates, inflation, general macroeconomic turmoil and simple anxiety characterize the markets during the day.

“The general market climate is characterized by uncertainty, driven by speculation about the Fed’s (Fed’s) future interest rate strategy,” TDN Direct wrote Thursday afternoon.

On Thursday afternoon, the price of oil also fell sharply by $2 a barrel to around $74 for North Sea oil, before quickly recovering slightly to around $75. Presumably, the reason for the price drop was rumors in the market about progress in negotiations with Iran. When the US stock exchanges closed at 10 pm, the price was $75.60 per barrel.(conditions)Copyright Dagens Næringsliv AS and/or our suppliers. We’d like you to share our statuses using links that lead directly to our pages. Reproduction or other use of all or part of the Content may be made only with written permission or as permitted by law. For more terms see here.