Wall Street records modest gains on Thursday

Boosted by tech shares, Nasdaq outperforms other major indexes on Thursday.
Financials lift the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
Healthcare suffers losses on Amazon's announcement.

Eren Sengezer FXStreet

Following the choppy trading action in the first half of the session, major equity indexes gathered momentum in the last few hours to end the day with modest gains.

Earlier today, online-retail giant Amazon announced its decision to acquire PillPack in an effort to penetrate the pharmaceutical market. Shares of big pharmacy chains such as CVS and Rite Aid recorded heavy losses on the announcement and the S&P 500 Health Care Sector fell sharply before making a late recovery amid bargain shopping.

On the other hand, the risk-sensitive technology shares took advantage of the lack of fresh developments regarding the trade policy and made a correction on Thursday. "We're just treading water. There's been inconsistency out of the White House as to what the (trade) policy actually is. We're all just waiting and tapping our foot to see the actual policy," Brian Battle, director of trading at Performance Trust Capital Partners in Chicago, told Reuters. The S&P 500 Information Technology Sector (SPLRCT) added over 1% on the day.

Meanwhile, bank shares gained traction as investors started pricing a positive outcome in the U.S. Federal Reserve's stress test for banks and lenders to be released after the closing bell. The financial heavy Dow Jones Industrial Average closed the day 89.19 points, or 0.37%, higher at 24,206.78.

The S&P 500 added 15.7 points, or 0.58%, to 2,715.33 and the tech-dominated Nasdaq Composite rose 57.40 points, or 0.77%, to 7,502.48.

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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