STAN CHOE, Associated Press
40 minutes ago
People walk past the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday, March 27, 2024. Global stock prices are mixed after Wall Street slipped slightly further from its record highs. (` Photo/Peter Morgan)
NEW YORK (`) — U.S. stocks rose Thursday after a three-day lull.
The S&P 500 was 0.6% higher in early trading. It is on track for its first rise since hitting an all-time high last week on Thursday, but any moves since then have been relatively modest.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 307 points, or 0.8%, as of 9:40 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq Composite was 0.3% higher.
Trump Media & Technology Group shares continue their wild run, rising another 18.6%. The company behind the lucrative platform Truth Social has grown far beyond what critics say is rational as fans of former President Donald Trump push it ever higher.
Merck rose 4.9% after federal regulators approved its Winrevair treatment for adults with pulmonary arterial hypertension, a rare disease in which blood vessels in the lungs thicken and narrow.
Robinhood Markets rose 3.5% after it unveiled its first credit card reserved for its subscription-paying Gold members, among other new products.
Carnival was on the losing side on Wall Street. The cruise operator fell 3.3% despite reporting a smaller-than-expected loss for its latest quarter.
GameStop also slumped after reporting results last quarter that beat analysts' forecasts. This is the original meme stock that existed years before Trump Media and whose price was often based more on the mood of more financially powerful investors than on fundamentals such as profits and sales.
In the bond market, Treasury yields were relatively stable and there were few economic reports on the calendar that could cause a stir.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 4.22% from 4.23% late Tuesday.
The peak of the week for the bond market could arrive on Friday when the U.S. government releases the latest monthly update on U.S. consumer spending. It will include the measure of inflation that the Federal Reserve prefers to use when setting interest rates.
But both US bond and stock markets will remain closed this Good Friday. That could lead to some anticipated trades on Thursday. It will also be the last day of the month and the first quarter, which could further unsettle the situation.
The S&P 500 is on track for its fifth consecutive month of success and has been on a rapid upward trend since the end of October. The U.S. economy has remained remarkably resilient despite high interest rates designed to control inflation. Additionally, the Federal Reserve is expected to begin cutting interest rates this year as inflation has cooled from its peak.
But critics say a broader range of companies need to post strong earnings growth to justify their big price moves. Progress in reducing inflation has also become bumpier recently, with reports this year coming in hotter than expected.
Still, traders generally expect the Federal Reserve to begin cutting interest rates in June.
On overseas stock markets, indices in Europe and Asia were mixed.
Chinese stocks were among the worst performers, although the governor of China's central bank told a high-level economic conference in Beijing that the battered real estate industry was showing signs of recovery and that the impact of defaults by dozens of developers was limited. Shares fell 1.4% in Hong Kong and 1.3% in Shanghai.
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` business reporters Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.
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