Oct. 14 (UPI) — U.S. markets rose on Thursday amid a cluster of positive third-quarter earnings reports.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 534.75 points, or 1.46%, while the S&P 500 climbed 1.71% and the Nasdaq Composite rose 1.73%.
Eight members of the S&P 500 posted third-quarter earnings Thursday morning and all eight surpassed analysts’ earnings-per-share expectations.
“So far, the overwhelming majority of large U.S. companies have been able to generate higher profitability despite rising labor costs because sales growth has been so robust. We expect the same to be true in 3Q,” Mark Haefele, chief investment officer of UBS Global Wealth Management, wrote in a note.
Shares of Walgreens Boots Alliance rose 7.43% after the pharmacy chain exceeded earnings expectations and announced a $5.2 billion investment, making it the majority owner of primary-care company Village MD.
UnitedHealth stock also rose 4.15% Thursday.
Bank of America stock rose 4.52% as profits increased by 58% to $7.7 billion following the release of $1.1 billion in credit reserves previously set aside to prevent potential customer defaults.
Morgan Stanley stock also rose 2.52%, while Citigroup closed up just 0.75% and Wells Fargo fell 1.54% despite all three posting better-than-expected earnings.
Technology stocks also got a boost on Thursday as the 10-year treasury yield fell below 1.53% after rising above 1.62% earlier this week.
Shares of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, closed the day up 2.59%, Microsoft stock rose 2.17%, Apple stock gained 2.02% and Facebook stock increased 1.23%.
Markets also responded positively to a lower-than-expected total of weekly jobless claims as the Department of Labor said there were 293,000 new filings last week, a decrease of 36,000 from the week before and the lowest figure since mid-March of 2020, when there were 256,000.
