Stocks rallied on Thursday as investors regained confidence in the economy following encouraging consumer and labor data that helped ease recession worries.
The Dow Jones Industrial average leaped 437 points, or 1.10%.
Retails sales increased 1% in July, far surpassing an estimate from Dow Jones that forecast a 0.3% uptick.
After a 3% gain this week, the S&P 500 is now less than 3% below its record.
Elsewhere, Cisco Systems jumped more than 5% after announcing a fiscal fourth-quarter earnings and revenue beat and cuts to its global workforce.
Following upbeat consumer and labor data that helped allay fears of a recession, stocks rose on Thursday as investors began to feel more optimistic about the economy.
The 1 point 10% increase, or 437 points, was made in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The SandP 500 gained 0 points, or 9.95 percent, for the sixth straight day. The Nasdaq Composite added 1.26 percentage points.
Retail sales climbed by 1% in July, significantly outpacing a 0.3 percent increase predicted by Dow Jones. Weekly jobless claims decreased during the course of the week as well. The data was helpful to investors and the market as a whole as they attempted to recover from an August sell-off caused by worries about a slowing economy that surfaced after July’s dismal jobs report on August 2.
The S&P 500 is currently less than 3% below its record, following a 3% gain this week. The three principal U.S. S. Indexes are now trading higher than they did in August. 2 closing level, the session prior to the August global stock market meltdown. 5 that was primarily fueled by investors’ worries about a slowdown in the economy and the end of a well-liked hedge fund currency trade.
More information of this kind, according to Chris Larkin, managing director of trading and investing at E-Trade from Morgan Stanley, “may allay fears that the economy is headed for recession and relieve pressure on the Fed to cut rates more aggressively than they’d like to.”.
Before Thursday’s flurry of economic data, investors’ concerns about a recession had mostly been dashed by encouraging inflation data this week, which also sparked a rally in stocks after last week’s severe global sell-off.
Walmart, a company in the Dow, contributed to the momentum by raising its outlook and reporting earnings that exceeded analyst estimates, driving up shares by more than 7%. Aside from that, Cisco Systems increased by more than 5% following the release of its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings and revenue beat as well as workforce reductions worldwide.
