On Thursday morning in Asia, July 8, the U.S. stocks climbed as the Dow and S&P 500 closed at record highs after the Federal Reserve’s latest minutes.
The sectors in Industrials, Basic Materials, and Utilities led the gains.
At the close of the New York Stock Exchange, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, and Nasdaq Composite all gained 0.30%, 0.34%, and 0.01%, respectively.
Apple Inc, 3M Company, and Home Depot Inc led the gains in the Dow benchmark. They all traded higher by 1.82%, 1.52%, and 1.28%, respectively.
Meanwhile, Boeing Co, Chevron Corp, and Salesforce.com Inc all fluctuated 1.86% or 4.39 points, 1.01% or 1.05 points, and 0.75% or 1.88 points, respectively.
Furthermore, in the S&P 500 index, the best performers were the Affiliated Managers Group Inc, Oracle Corporation, and Nucor Corp. All rose 5.26%, 3.61%, and 3.38%, respectively.
The worst performers were Macy’s Inc, Xilinx Inc, and MarketAxess Holdings Inc. They all lost 5.97% at $17.17, 4.67% at $137.43, and 4.58% at $450.20, respectively.
Moreover, the gainers of the NASDAQ Composite were Newegg Commerce Inc, Mannatech Inc, and Data Storage Corp. They all rallied 149.12%, 49.08%, and 31.82%, respectively.
Meanwhile, the losers of the index were Bridgeline Digital Inc, BSQUARE Corp, and Professional Diversity Network Inc. They all fell 30.91%, 28.87%, and 21.46%, respectively.
In the Nasdaq Stock Exchange, falling stocks outnumbered those advancing at a ratio of 2444 to 1032, while 146 closed unchanged.
Additionally, in the New York Stock Exchange, the falling ones also outnumbered the advancing ones by 1702 to 1461, while 129 remained steady.
Federal Reserve Latest Minutes
The U.S. Federal Reserve’s June policy meeting minutes stated that its officials observed significant progress in the nation’s economic recovery.
A policymaker said they already saw a recovery in the economy even though the goals had not yet been met. Due to this, they agreed that they should be ready to act if inflation or other risks may materialize.
An analyst commented that he saw this as a dovish set of notes. The reasoning behind this was that Fed officials are not fully joining hands to make any changes to the current situation.
Another analyst stated that the latest data showed that the central bank’s officials are divided due to the new inflation risks and high unemployment rates.
Meanwhile, the release of the minutes led the U.S. Treasury yields lower while driving most of the stocks higher.
In addition, most investors started to expect that the Fed will move more quickly to tighten its policy than recently anticipated.
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