U.S. stocks get boost in sentiment from 1% gains in oil
Investing.com – Wall Street traded slightly higher on Wednesday as oil bounced back from ten-month lows and readings on unemployment came out roughly in line with forecasts.
At 11:08AM ET (15:08GMT), the Dow Jones gained 45 points, or 0.20%, the S&P 500 rose 4 points, or 0.17%, while the Nasdaq Composite traded up 6 points, or 0.10%.
Oil prices recovered on Thursday after having hit 10-month lows in the prior session.
Crude extended gains, rising more than 1%, after The Wall Street Journal reported that Saudi Arabia was searching for ways to lift prices and that the world’s largest exporter was targeting $60 per barrel for Aramco’s IPO.
Black gold was still down more than 3% on the week due to concerns over a global supply glut and falling demand.
U.S. crude futures gained 1.48% to $43.16 by 11:10AM ET (15:10GMT), while Brent oil rose 1.81% to $45.63.
Meanwhile, weekly jobless claims rose by 3,000 to 241,000 last week, roughly in line with forecasts for 240,000 and still well within the range that indicates a firming labor market.
Federal Reserve (Fed) governor Jerome Powell also offered no surprises for markets as he concentrated on the relationship between bank regulation and economic growth in his testimony to the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, remained little change throughout Thursday’s session. It was last unchanged at 97.22 by 11:11AM ET (15:11GMT).
On the company front, shares in Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) jumped nearly 10% after the firm’s move into cloud computing helped it beat earnings forecasts.
In corporate movements, Staples (NASDAQ:SPLS) jumped more than 7% on a report that private equity firm Sycamore Partners was close to a deal to acquire the office supply retailer.
American Airlines (NASDAQ:AAL) gained nearly 3% after announcing that Qatar Airways was interested in taking a 10% stake in the company.
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRKa) surprised some analysts by taking a nearly 40% stake in troubled Canadian lender Home Capital Group.
Snapchat’s parent Snap Inc (NYSE:SNAP). also grabbed headlines on a report that it had paid between $250 and $350 million to pick up French start-up Zenly in preparation of its own map app.
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