The stock markets in the United States rebounded after suffering declines over the past two days. Yesterday, the markets were negatively impacted by lower-than-expected manufacturing and jobs data from ISM and ADP, respectively.
Sign up for our free newsletter
Walter Todd, chief investment officer at Greenwood Capital told Bloomberg that investors are focused on the official report from the Department of Labor regarding the situation of the labor market in the country.
“I think everybody is obviously waiting on the jobs number tomorrow.” Commenting on today’s market trend, Todd said, “I wouldn’t be surprised to see us trade back down toward flat as the day progresses, but I think the initial positive move again is on some of the better-than-expected data we got this morning.”
Today, the Labor Department reported that the number people who applied for unemployment benefit declined by 20,000 to 268,000 for the week ended March 28. The number is lower than the 270,000 claims estimated by Tom Simmons, an economist at Jefferies.
[drizzle]Simons commented, “One element of the economy that isn’t reflecting the weakness seen elsewhere is the job market. It indicates consumers will have more purchasing power and thus should be able to increase consumption.”
On the other hand, Ian Sheperdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics said, “The claims numbers simply do not support the idea that the first-quarter slowdown in growth is indicative of some underlying malaise in the economy.”
U.S. Markets
- Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) – 17,763.24 (+0.37%)
- S&P 500- 2,066.96 (+0.35%)
- NASDAQ- 4,886.94 (+0.14%)
- Russell 2000- 1,255.51 (+0.30%)
European Markets
- EURO STOXX 50 Price EUR- 3,715.27 (+0.01%)
- FTSE 100 Index- 6,833.46 (+0.35%)
- Deutsche Borse AG German Stock Index DAX- 11,967.39 (-0.28%)
Asia-Pacific Markets
- Nikkei 225- 19,312.79 (+1.46%)
- Hong Kong Hang Seng Index- 25,275.64 (+0.77%)
- Shanghai Shenzhen CSI 300 Index- 4,124.78 (+0.02%)
Stocks in Focus
The stock price of CarMax increased more than 9% to $74.73 per share after reporting strong earnings for the fourth quarter. CarMax posted a 52% growth in earnings to $0.67 per share compared with the $0.60 per share expected by analyst. Its revenue rose 14% to $3.5 billion, in line with the consensus estimate.
Motorola Solutions declined more than 6% to $62.51 per share due to the report that it failed to find a buyer among private equity funds large industrial companies. One of the people familiar with the situation commented that Motorola Solutions appeared too large as a target for any single buyout fund.
The shares of Argos Therapeutics climbed almost 10% to $8.97 per share. Analysts at MLV & Co. reiterated their Buy rating for the company with a price of $13 per share.
[/drizzle]
