The Dow Jones industrial average and the S&P 500 broke a record on Thursday, the last trading day of 2020, as a volatile year, brutally disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, came to an end.
The Dow rose 196 points, or 0.65%, to 30,606.48, while the S&P 500 rose 0.64% to 3,756.07 and the Nasdaq rose 0.14% to 12,888.28. .
Both the Dow and the S&P also reached intraday highs.
For the year, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 7.2%. It ends 2019 at 28,538.44.
The S&P 500 increased by 16.3% in 2020 and was at 3,230.78 in 2019.
And the Nasdaq Composite rose 43.6% this year. It closed 2019 at 8,972.60.
On Wednesday, the shares ended slightly higher and the Dow closed on a record.
The initial claims for unemployment fell by 19,000 to 787,000 in the week ending December 26.
Wall Street expects initial unemployment claims to rise to 828,000. The total from the previous week was adjusted upwards by 3,000 to 806,000.
“The initial claims for unemployment have dropped a bit, but at such a high level and with these large margins of error, they are in fact stuck at a painful, inflated level due to the coronavirus boom,” said Robert Frick, corporate economist of Navy Federal Credit Union, said. .
As long as the upswing continues, Frick said, “even with stimulus, we can expect more than 1 million Americans to lose their jobs weekly, based on state and federal measures.”
On the political front, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) has said Democrats will allow votes that limit a liability screen for tech companies and set up a commission to investigate the 2020 election as the GOP agrees to a separate vote on sending $ 2,000 checks to most Americans, reports CNBC.
President Donald Trump demanded that Congress move on all three issues when he agreed to sign a $ 900 billion Covid-19 emergency relief package, but the leader of the majority, Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), direct payments of $ 2,000 as ‘socialism for the rich’.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the number of confirmed global deaths due to covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, has risen to nearly 1.81 million. Cases of the virus around the world have risen to 83.1 million.
The U.S. death toll is 343,030, the most in the world. The number of confirmed infected people in the US was 19.8 million.
According to the university’s data, there were 201,555 new cases of coronavirus in the U.S. on Wednesday and a record 3,725 deaths.
A highly contagious variant of the coronavirus that has spread across the UK has been discovered in California, a day after authorities in Colorado confirmed that the strain was found in a man in his twenties.
Colorado health officials have also identified a second possible case of the new strain. Experts said existing vaccines against the new strain should be effective.
Exxon Mobile (XOM) – Get report indicated in a regulatory statement that it would likely record a fourth-quarter loss after taking a write-off of as much as $ 20 billion on its upstream assets. Energy stocks closed nearly 1% at $ 41.01.
JC Solney, CEO of JC Penney, leaves the retailer. The new owners of the chain, which emerged from bankruptcy earlier this month, have begun the search for a new leader.
Simon Property Group (SPG) – Get report and Brookfield Asset Management (BAM) – Get report, the two U.S. mall owners who bought Penney in the fall, said they are looking for a leader “focused on modern retail, the consumer experience and the goal of creating a sustainable and lasting JC Penney.” “
The stock exchange will close on January 1st. US bond markets closed at 2pm on Thursday and there will be no trading on New Year’s Day.