After an early move to the upside, stocks have given back some ground over the course of morning trading on Thursday but remain mostly positive. The advance on the day comes after the late-day pullback seen in reaction to yesterday’s monetary policy announcement by the Federal Reserve.<\/p>\n
Currently, the major averages are off their best levels of the day but still holding on to notable gains. The Dow is up 409.81 points or 1.2 percent at 34,577.90, the Nasdaq is up 60.63 points or 0.5 percent at 13,602.75 and the S&P 500 is up 44.09 points or 1 percent at 4,394.02.<\/p>\n
The strength on Wall Street may partly reflect a positive reaction to a report from the Commerce Department showing stronger than expected U.S. economic growth in the fourth quarter of 2021.<\/p>\n
The report said real gross domestic product spiked by 6.9 percent in the fourth quarter after jumping by 2.3 percent in the third quarter. Economists had expected GDP to surge up by 5.5 percent.<\/p>\n
The data has seemingly generated optimism the economy<\/span> is holding up well as the Federal Reserve prepares to begin raising interest rates as early as March.<\/p>\n However, economists had pointed out the strong GDP growth was primarily due to a massive surge in business<\/span> inventories, which added 4.9 percentage points, the second largest contribution since 1987. <\/p>\n “While normally such a large inventory build would be very negative for future growth, in today’s environment it points to an easing of supply-chain snarls and means consumers will have more products to purchase once the winter lull passes,” said Kathy Bostjancic, Chief U.S. Financial Economist at Oxford Economics.<\/p>\n Adding to the positive sentiment, the Labor Department released a report showing initial jobless claims pulled back in the week ended January 22nd following a bigger than expected increase in the previous week.<\/p>\n The report said initial jobless claims fell to 260,000, a decrease of 30,000 from the previous week’s revised level of 290,000. Economists had expected jobless claims to drop to 260,000 from the 286,000 originally reported for the previous week.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, separate reports from the Commerce Department and the National Association of Realtors showed steeper than expected drops in durable goods orders and pending home sales in the month of December.<\/p>\n A steep drop by shares of Intel (INTC) is also holding back the markets<\/span>, with the semiconductor giant plunging by 6.6 percent after reporting better than expected fourth quarter results but providing a mixed outlook.<\/p>\n Pharmaceutical stocks have shown a strong move to the upside over the course of the morning, driving the NYSE Arca Pharmaceutical Index up by 2.1 percent.<\/p>\n Significant strength is also visible among airline stocks, as reflected by the 2 percent jump by the NYSE Arca Airline Index.<\/p>\n Computer hardware stocks are also turning in a strong performance on the day, with the NYSE Arca Computer Hardware Index surging by 2 percent.<\/p>\n Disk drive maker Seagate Technology (STX) has helped lead the sector higher, spiking by 16.5 percent after providing upbeat guidance.<\/p>\n Software, retail and utilities stocks are also seeing notable strength on the day, while semiconductor and gold stocks have moved sharply lower.<\/p>\n In overseas trading, stock markets across the Asia-Pacific region moved sharply lower during trading on Thursday. Japan’s Nikkei 225 Index plummeted by 3.1 percent, while China’s Shanghai Composite Index tumbled by 1.8 percent.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the major European markets have moved to the upside after seeing early weakness. While the U.K.’s FTSE 100 Index has jumped by 1 percent, the French CAC 40 Index is up by 0.6 percent and the German DAX Index is just above the unchanged line.<\/p>\n In the bond market, treasuries are regaining ground after coming under pressure going into the close of the previous session. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, is down by 4.3 basis points at 1.805 percent. <\/p>\n