Despite the serious flooding in New York, trading on US exchanges did not stop and stock indicators showed gains on Thursday. For example, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 0.37%, the broad-based S&P 500 was up 0.28%, and the tech-heavy NASDAQ Composite advanced 0.14%.
Experts attribute the US indicators gain to several factors. Firstly, the rise in oil prices provoked the quotations growth of energy sector companies. Secondly, the number of jobless claims in the USA fell to 340,000 against the expectations of analysts, who forecasted the indicator reading at 345,000. Thirdly, the American trade balance deficit decreased by 4.3% against the early summer level. Fourthly, investors expect publication of unemployment data for August. Preliminary data show that it dropped from 5.4% to 5.2%. According to analysts, employment rate rose by 750,000.
Among the components of Dow Jones, Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. (+2.96%), Chevron Corp. (+2.09%), Caterpillar Inc. (+1,84%) are the stock rising leaders. Visa Inc. Class A shares fell by 2.58%, American Express Co. stocks were down 1.45%.
Among the components of the S&P 500, Quanta Services Inc. shares gained the most, rising by 12.06%. Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation stocks increased by 6.70% and Occidental Petroleum Corporation were up 5.98%. Autodesk Inc., Hormel Foods Corp. and Gap Inc. shares showed a heavy loss, dropping by 5.2%, 4.6% and 2.91%, respectively.
Among NASDAQ components, AgileThought Inc. (+69.40%) shares, Sphere 3D Corp. (+41.78%) and Data Storage Cor.p (+29.59%) stocks surged. At the same time, Meten Edtechx Education Group Ltd, Unico American Corp. and Assembly Biosciences Inc. shares fell by 57.18%, 17.39% and 16.15%, respectively.
On the New York Stock Exchange, the number of stocks that showed gain (2,034) exceeded the number of stocks that went down (1,141). The situation is the same on NASDAQ, with 2,178 stocks rising in value and 1,314 falling.
Quotations of some companies were at record highs. For instance, Quanta Services Inc. hit a record high of 114.04 and AgileThought Inc. went up 69.4% and hit a historical high of 23,530. Sphere 3D Corp. reached a three-year high of 9,400, up 41.78%.
At the same time, some other companies' stocks showed a record fall in value: Hormel Foods Corp. shares were at the lowest level of 43.57 for the last year. Meten EdtechX Education Group Ltd stocks lost 57.18% and ended down to a historic low of 0.3937. Assembly Biosciences Inc. shares hit a low of 3,270, losing 16.15%.
The volatility indicator rose by 1.86% to 16.41.
Gold futures for December dropped by 0.22% and closed at $1,811.95 a troy ounce. WTI crude futures went up 1.65% and ended at $69.72 per barrel. Brent futures increased by 1.62% and closed at $72.75 per barrel.
The following situation arises on the Forex market: the EUR/USD pair gained 0.31%, closing at 1.1874, the USD/JPY pair fell by 0.04% and ended down at 109.95.
