Wall Street Opens Higher as Jobless Claims Bolster Recovery Hopes By Investing.com

By Geoffrey Smith 

Investing.com — U.S. stock markets opened higher on Thursday as fresh data from the labor market bolstered hopes that the economy is coming out of a Covid-19-induced hibernation.

The Labor Department said initial jobless claims fell to their lowest level since the start of the pandemic last week – albeit the absolute level of 712,000 remains close to unimaginable for the time before Covid. 

By 9:45 AM ET (1445 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 144 points, or 0.5%, at a new record high of 32,441 points. The S&P 500 was up 0.7% and the Nasdaq Composite was outperforming again with a rise of 1.6%.

The data “strongly suggest that any temporary job losses triggered by last month’s huge winter storm have been more than offset by a decline in the underlying trend,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist with Pantheon Macroeconomics in emailed comments. “This, in turn, has been triggered by the gradual re-opening now underway across the country.”

Shepherdson said he expects the weekly initial claims figure to fall to below 500,000 by Memorial Day.