Stocks rallied on Wednesday as investors moved gains into some of the more coronavirus pandemic-impacted parts of the market. Encouraging recent economic data and more positive COVID-19 news has led the market towards new levels of growth. Both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq finished with fresh highs, and the Dow Jones gained over 450 points in its best rally since mid-July, closing less than 2% from its all time high.
But there are still some worrying signs that cloud long-term economic outlook; ADP's National Employment Report for August saw the addition of only 480,000 private payrolls, far below the consensus estimates for 1 million jobs. However, July's report was upwardly revised to 212,000 from the 160,000 previously reported.
Here's how the market settled on Wednesday:
S&P 500 Index
Dow Jones Industrial Average
Nasdaq Composite Index
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For Sector Performance, most industries advanced on Wednesday's positivity, with only Energy falling -0.42%. The performance increases were as follows: Utilities +3.12%, Materials +2.28%, Real Estate +2.24%, Communication Services +2.19%, Health Care +2.09%, Consumer Staples +1.90%, Industrials +1.63%, Financials +1.50%, Consumer Discretionary +1.24% Information Technology +0.92%.
For Commodities and Currency, the U.S. Dollar
For Thursday, investors will focus on the Labor Department's weekly jobless claims and the latest data from the ISM non-manufacturing index that are slated to release.