The price of crude oil has recorded yesterday its sharpest advance in the last four months, jumping up by over 3% to a level of 84 US dollars for one barrel during electronic trading at the New York Commodities exchange. The price of gold, in the meanwhile, recorded a slight descent by 0.4% to a level of 1372 US dollars for one ounce of gold.
Wall Street trading closed yesterday on index rises inspired by positive macroeconomic data from the labor market. By the end of the trading day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had strengthened by 1.4% to 11,188 points, the NASDAQ index ticked up by 1.9% to 2,543 points, whereas the S&P 500 had risen by 1.5% to 1,198 points. Today the stock markets in the United States will be closed for Thanksgiving.
Index rises have been recorded this morning in the Asian stock markets for the first time in three days. As such the Tokyo stock exchange has recorded a 0.8% rise, the Hong Kong exchange climbs about 1%, and the Seoul exchange climbs slightly by 0.2%.
In the American macroeconomic arena, the Irish government had published data yesterday regarding its new austerity plan including the reduction of government deficits by 15 billion Euros (4% of the nation's GDP) over 4 years. The program includes a 10 billion expenditures cut as well as new taxes that will increase government revenue by 5 billion Euros.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported yesterday that the amount of new unemployment claims in the United States had fallen last week by 34 thousand to 407 thousand, the lowest level since July 2008. The reduction was far sharper than predicted by analysts, who expected to see 435 thousand new unemployment claims. Furthermore, it was reported that private consumption in the United States grew by 0.4% in October, slightly lower than economists' predictions of a 0.5% rise. Furthermore, the order data for non-consumable products had descended by 3.3% in October as compared to the previous month, while analysts expected only a 0.1% decline in orders.