Reuters / Lucas Jackson
- US stocks climbed on Thursday after weekly jobless claims were less dire than expected.
- A record 22 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits over the past four weeks, effectively wiping out all jobs created since the Great Recession as coronavirus layoffs persist.
- More banks and financial institutions reported earnings early Thursday, with mixed results.
- Read more on Business Insider.
US stocks rose on Thursday after weekly jobless claims were less dire than expected. Roughly 5.2 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits in the week ended April 11, the Labor Department said in a report.
The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq composite climbed, led by Netflix and Amazon. Both technology stocks ended the day up more than 2.9%. The Dow Jones industrial average also edged higher.
While Thursday’s jobless-claims number was slightly lower than in the previous report, it still showed that 22 million people had filed for unemployment benefits in just four weeks, effectively wiping out all the jobs created since the Great Recession.
“This is an awful number, but it is lower than the prior two weeks, which were above 6 million jobless claims. I do believe we have peaked,” David Bahnsen, the chief investment officer of The Bahnsen Group, told Business Insider.
Here’s where major US indexes stood at the 4 p.m. ET market close on Thursday:
- S&P 500: 2,799.55, up 0.6%
- Dow Jones industrial average: 23,537.68, up 0.1% (33 points)
- Nasdaq composite: 8,532.36, up 1.7%
The unemployment figures were the latest economic data to show the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the US. President Donald Trump said this week that data suggested US COVID-19 cases had peaked and that he would give guidelines to states on how to reopen economies.
But some parts of the country will remain in lockdowns for at least another month. On Thursday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo extended the state’s stay-at-home order to May 15.
“The economy is clearly in a frozen state at the moment, and it’s very difficult to know with certainty when the wheels of the economy will begin to move again,” Hussein Sayed, the chief market strategist at FXTM, told Business Insider. “Such uncertainty makes analysts’ and strategists’ jobs much tougher, as many variables remain unknown and cannot be calculated in valuation models.”
Investors also looked to earnings reports early Thursday. Morgan Stanley shares slipped about 0.6% after the bank reported mixed earnings, showing a beat on trading but a lower profit than anticipated. Shares of BNY Mellon gained about 1% after beating earnings estimates.
Other banks, including Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JPMorgan, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo also reported lower profits amid the coronavirus pandemic.
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