Wall Street was set to open a touch higher on Thursday, with the S&P 500 within striking distance of a record high, after data showed weekly jobless claims fell below 1 million for the first time since March when the effects of COVID-19 shutdowns began to take effect.
The total U.S. jobless claims of 963,000 for the week ended Aug. 8 was well below the estimate of 1.1 million from economists surveyed by Dow Jones. That represented a decline of 228,000 from the previous week’s total.
Ambar Warrick and Medha Singh for Reuters:
The number of Americans filing for state unemployment benefits fell over last week, the Labor Department’s data showed, signaling a recovery in the job market was on track after data last week showed the economy has regained only 9.3 million jobs of the 22 million jobs lost between February and April.
The S&P 500 ended Wednesday about 0.4% below its intraday record high hit on Feb. 19, having recovered virtually all of its losses due to the pandemic, thanks to unprecedented stimulus and a better-than-feared earnings season.
A bulk of the gains have been driven by technology stocks and the tech-heavy Nasdaq was the first of the three major indexes to recoup its pandemic-driven losses in June.
Apple rose 1.1% in premarket trade, with investors watching for the iPhone maker to become the first publicly-listed U.S. company with a $2 trillion stock market value.
CNBC:
The U.S. has recovered about half the jobs it lost during the pandemic closures, according to recnt nonfarm payrolls report. July saw a gain of about 1.8 million, bringing the unemployment rate down to 10.1%.
However, that remains well above the pre-pandemic level of 3.5%, which was the lowest in 50 years.
MacDailyNews Note: Apple is currently worth $1.949 trillion.
Rod Hall’s clients must be cursing him to high heaven if they followed his advice about selling Apple. Does Rod Hall deserve to have a title of analyst when he missed on Apple as much as he did? I wonder how well he did with his analysis of other stocks he follows. Using Apple as an example, the saying of “missing the broadside of a barn” is about as close as you can get to his skills.
You’re welcome. Yet again.
For what should we thank Il Duce Wannabe? For previously donating to Biden and Harris’ campaigns? For admitting he’s actively underfunding the USPS to prevent mail in voting, which is the best way to vote in many states and ESSENTIAL for getting votes of US military stationed abroad.
Or should we thank him for not following through on his threats to China, not stopping the North Korean nuclear missile program, or denying the seriousness of coronavirus until it was out of control?
This conservative will vote to flush the turd on Nov 3rd.
You’re not a Conservative.
You MAY be more conservative than your circle of friends,
but that’s like being the tallest midget in the room.
And are you the same HH that was posting here years ago?
You don’t appear to be….
Look, I can cut and paste too!
Thanks For All You Do Daily For All Of US!!
So Glad To Have You At The Helm Insteard Of Some Generic UDIOT Dimocrat!!
If These Guys Were Measured In Wattage, Most Would Not Pass The 40 Watt Light Bulb Test!! NONE OF THEM ARE VERY BRIGHT!!
Hey dim wit, why don’t you go heat your home with nonexistent “clean coal”?
Some people know that if you use modern technology, you can illuminate your room easily with 40 watts of energy burn. But the dullards among us would have to stop whining about bipolar politics and accept change. Your 1880s era incandescent light bulb mindset and me-first attitude is precisely what prevents the USA from being #1 in infrastructure, and thus manufacturing and job creation. The knuckle draggers don’t utter a peep when fossil fuel companies swindle taxpayers but they whine endlessly if anyone suggests the citizens of the USA pool their resources to have the best clean efficient cars, trains, airplanes, mass transit, and energy production.
Stop making up bs about the blue team and see what a feckless idiot is in office today. We need a leader to bring us forward, not backward!!!!!
One wonders why you are even on a tech site if you can’t stand to see progress of any kind.
Hh:
Obviously, massively big unconstitutional government is your god. Please move to China where you can be at one with others who share your worshipful and suicidal CCP mentality. And leave us free of your hectoring (is that what “hh” stands for?— “hectoring halfbright”? That would help us to understand your rush to denigrate others with whom you disagree using your lightbulb analogy. You are a joiner. Many of us are not and prefer to think for ourselves. Stop your morally superior lecturing. And, in the words of Eric Carman: “Bite my shorts” or better yet; “sck my blls!”