The main indices on Wall Street opened higher on Wednesday, driven by bets that the Federal Reserve (the US central bank) has reached the end of the monetary tightening cycle and the decline in yields on longer-dated Treasury bonds, while traders evaluate the latest batch of economic data.
Data from the US Department of Labor showed that initial applications for unemployment benefits in the United States have declined by 24 thousand applications, reaching a seasonally adjusted level of 209 thousand applications for the week ending November 18.
Economists polled by Reuters had expected claims for the past week to reach 226 thousand applications.
Data from the minutes of the Federal Reserve meeting on October 31 and the first of November also showed that monetary policymakers at the US central bank believe that interest rate increases have contributed to slowing the growth of the labor market in the world’s largest economy.
Since March 2022, the US Federal Reserve has raised interest rates by 525 basis points to the current range of 5.25 percent to 5.50 percent.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 101.04 points, or 0.29 percent, to 35,189.33 points.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose by 14.85 points, or 0.33 percent, to 4,553.04 points, while the Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 83.84 points, or 0.59 percent, to 14,283. 82 points.
