US stocks surge after surprise fall in job openings
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Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, in New York City.
PHOTO: REUTERS
NEW YORK - US stocks notched solid gains on Tuesday as traders digested a surprise decline in the number of job openings, raising the chances of softer Federal Reserve interest rate policy going forward.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished 0.9 per cent higher at 34,852.67.
The broad-based S&P 500 climbed 1.5 per cent to 4,497.63, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index surged 1.7 per cent to end the day at 13,943.76.
The Labour Department announced on Tuesday that the number of job openings edged down to 8.8 million on the last business day of July.
The Job Openings and Labour Turnover Summary (JOLTS) figure was well below the median expectation of economists surveyed by MarketWatch.
“The JOLTS number ‘jolted’ the market because that was way below expectations – and last month got revised lower,” Mr Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers, told AFP.
“If you are the Fed and trying to get the labour market into a better equilibrium between demand for labour and supply of labour, this is a helpful number,” he added.
Among individual stocks, chip maker NVIDIA saw its share price rise more than 4 per cent amid a tech-fuelled rally that also lifted titans of industry like Meta, Microsoft and Apple.
Consumer durables giant 3M also saw its share price rise after it announced a six billion dollar settlement over claims by US military veterans that its earplugs were faulty and failed to protect their hearing. AFP