Wall Street closed with modest gains as earnings awaited

Eren Sengezer FXStreet

Major equity indexes built on yesterday's gains on Thursday and closed the day with modest gains as financials and healthcare outperformed other major sectors.

Financial sector seems to be taking advantage of Fed Chairwoman Yellen's remarks, which suggested that rates were close to a "neutral" level and the bank might not need to hike the rates much more. The financial index .SPSY gained around 0.5%. In the meantime, the heightened expectations around the passage of the revised version of the health care bill helped the S&P 500 healthcare index .SPXHC add 0.23%.

Now with the Yellen's congressional testimony out of the way, investors are focused on the second quarter earnings. "Analysts estimate second-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies rose 7.8 percent from a year ago. Companies had their best profit performance since 2011 in the first quarter, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S" Reuters said.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 20.95 points, or 0.1%, to close the day at 21,553.09. The S&P 500 added 5.75 points, or 0.24%, to 2,445.75 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 13.27 points, or 0.21%, to 6,274.44.

Headlines from the U.S. session

Author

Eren Sengezer

FXStreet

As an economist at heart, Eren Sengezer specializes in the assessment of the short-term and long-term impacts of macroeconomic data, central bank policies and political developments on financial assets.

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