Energy stocks have helped to lead the way higher, benefiting from a sharp increase by the price of crude oil. Crude for May delivery is currently jumping $3.27 to $23.58 a barrel after Saudi Arabia has called for an emergency meeting of oil producers, while U.S. President Donald Trump said he expected the kingdom and Russia to cut output by as much as 10 million to 15 million barrels a day.
Considerable strength has also emerged among chemical, networking, telecom and computer hardware stocks, which are moving higher along with most of the other major sectors.
Walgreens fell 6.30% after the drugstore retailer reported a steep decline in U.S same-store sales in the last week of March.
On the economic news front, US Factory Orders Edge Down In February- US factory orders edged down by less than a tenth of a% to $497.4 billion in February after falling by 0.5% to $497.5 billion in January, a report released by the Commerce Department showed. Factory orders came in nearly unchanged as a 1.2% jump in orders for durable goods was offset by a 1.2% slump in orders for non-durable goods. The Commerce Department said shipments of manufactured goods edged down by 0.2% in February following a 0.6% decrease in January. Inventories of manufactured goods also fell by 0.4% in February after slipping by 0.3% in the previous month. With inventories and shipments both falling, the inventories-to-shipments ratio in February was unchanged from January at 1.40.
US Trade Deficit Narrows Significantly In February - US trade deficit narrowed to $39.9 billion in February from a revised $45.5 billion in January, reflecting a steep drop in the value of imports, the Commerce Department released a report on Thursday. The deficit shrank to its lowest level since hitting $39.0 billion in September of 2016. The narrower deficit came as the value of imports plunged by 2.5% to $247.5 billion in February after slumping by 1.7% to $253.8 billion in January. Imports of capital goods showed a substantial decrease, with imports of computers leading the way lower, while imports of industrial supplies and materials and consumer goods also fell sharply.
US First-Time Jobless Claims Skyrocket To New Record High- Initial jobless claims in the US skyrocketed to 6.648 million, an increase of 3.341 million from the previous week's revised level of 3.307 million, the Labor Department reported on Thursday. In the previous week, jobless claims shot up by 3.025 million. With another record-breaking increase, the number of seasonally adjusted initial claims reached the highest level in the history of the seasonally adjusted series.
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