Thursday’s trading saw stocks soar to their highest in almost 9 months. Better-than-expected profit reports and forecasts helped spur on the rally. A report that suggested that the job market is also stabilizing help urge investors to trade.
The Dow Jones spiked up 83 points or 0.9% to end its best since November of last year and its highest ever for 2009. The broad-market Standard & Poor 500 ended trading 11 points up or 1.2% again a 9-month high. Tech-heavy Nasdaq added 16 points or 0.8% to close its highest since October 2008.
Stocks were tentative during the first three trading days this week as the rally appeared to lose steam but as reports poured in, investors saw reason to take a piece of the action.
The continuing rally of stocks helps build the expectation that a recovery is well under way. Critics cautioned against such thinking since unemployment but the Labor Department’s latest report showed that claims dropped to 6.2 million last week from 6.25 million just a week ago.
Source: CNN
