| Stocks Go Into The Thanksgiving Holiday With a Win |
| Nov-21-2012 |
| Keywords: stocks higher, consumer confidence, jobless claims, cease-fire |
U.S. investors head into the Thanksgiving holiday with a win on Wall Street.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 48-points on the day. The Nasdaq Composite rose 10-points. The S&P 500 finished up 3-points.
Trading was fairly light ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, but that didn't diminish mostly upbeat news on the economy.
New claims for unemployment fell a steeper than expected 41,000 to 410,000. The Labor Department said Hurricane Sandy is still distorting the weekly readings.
A final reading on consumer sentiment for the month of November fell to 82.7, which was weaker than expectations expecting a reading of 84.5. Still, the final November reading is the highest in more than four years.
And the index of leading economic indicators edged up .2% in October, pointing to modest economic expansion growth in the near term.
Meanwhile, U.S. manufacturing grew at its fastest pace in five months in November, according to financial information firm Markit's U.S. "flash" manufacturing PMI.
Adding to the day's good news, Egypt's foreign minister announced a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel.
That news helped blunt the impact of a surprise decline in crude oil inventories. The January crude contract finished the session up a modest 63-cents, settling at $87.38 a barrel. |
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Posted by Lou Dobbs Staff at 8:00 PM Email to a friend |
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