Wall Street Close: S&P 500 recovers from correction territory

US stocks managed to hang on to gains on Thursday even as US jobless claims rose unexpectedly. However, a surge in the sale of New Homes offered some positives in an otherwise dubious economic background.

Apple Inc AAPL, Amazon.com Inc AMZN, Nvidia Corp NVDA and Facebook Inc .FB.O, all rose which have all been the pandemics best performers so far. 

However, the S&P 500 briefly fell 10% below the intraday record peak it hit Sept. 2 for the second time in recent days.

Dow constituents, considered a barometer of economic confidence, lagged the S&P 500.

Unofficially, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had climbed 51.65 points, or 0.19%, to 26,814.78. The S&P 500 added 9.6 points, or 0.30%, to 3,246.52, while the Nasdaq Composite put on 39.28 points, or 0.37%, to 10,672.27.

on Thursday as data showed 870,000 Americans applied for jobless benefits in the week ended Sept. 19, up from 866,000 in the previous week, suggesting the jobs recovery may be running of steam.

Continuing claims also fell by less than expected.

Meanwhile, US housing data was strong.

New home sales for August smashed expectations, rising 4.8% m/m on top of a near 15% rise the previous month (a 1.2% fall was expected).

This marks the fourth monthly rise, helped by record-low mortgage rates, but also, anecdotally, people reassessing where they’d prefer to live in a pandemic world. This takes the annualised pace of sales to 1m, the highest since 2007. There was a 4.3% decline in the median selling price, even with the strong demand – reflecting the increase in the proportion of ‘cheaper’ properties sold,

analysts at ANZ bank explained. 

SP 500 levels