Wall Street’s primary indexes ended Thursday’s trading day higher, with the Nasdaq jumping over 2% following robust consumer spending statistics from July U.S. retail sales, which allayed concerns about an impending recession in the largest economy in the world.
Consumer discretionary (.SPLRCD), opens new tab, and information technology (.SPLRCT) were the top three performing S&P 500 sectors, with nine of the eleven leading.
Retail sales rose by 1.0% in June following a downwardly revised 0.2% decline in June, allaying concerns of a severe economic downturn stoked by last week’s spike in the jobless rate.
The market leader in retail, Walmart (WMT.N), opened a new tab that increased by 6.58% after increasing its annual profit projection for the second time this year as consumers rushed to its stores in search of low-cost necessities.
Competitors Target (TGT.N) and Costco (COST.O) both opened new tabs and saw increases of 1.69% and 4.35%, respectively.
According to a different analysis, fewer Americans than expected filed new claims for unemployment benefits last week.
With traders raising their bets for a 25 basis-point rate decrease by the Federal Reserve to 76.5% from 65% before the report, the yield on two-year and 10-year Treasury notes increased following the release of the data.
Awaiting Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s much-awaited speech at Jackson Hole next week, investors have been closely watching this week’s economic data releases.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) increased by 1.39%, or 554.67 points, to 40,563.06 in the opens new tab. At 5,543.22, the S&P 500 (.SPX) opened a new tab, up 88.01 points, or 1.61%. Opening a new tab, the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) increased by 401.90 points, or 2.34%, to 17,594.50.
Cisco Systems (CSCO.O), one of the other movers, opened a new tab and saw a 6.8% increase in sales after forecasting better-than-expected first-quarter revenue and announcing 7% labour cuts worldwide.
As billionaire investor William Ackman increased his holdings in the sportswear firm, Nike (NKE.N) opened a new tab and saw a 5.07% increase. Following the acquisition of a share in the chain of cosmetics stores by Berkshire Hathaway (BRKa.N), owned by Warren Buffett, Ulta Beauty (ULTA.O), opened a new tab that saw an 11.17% increase in value.
On the NYSE, advances outweighed decliners by a ratio of 3.22 to 1. Advancers exceeded decliners on the Nasdaq by a ratio of 2.66 to 1.
While the Nasdaq Composite recorded 104 new lows and 76 new highs, the S&P 500 registered 30 new 52-week highs and one new low.
