Dow surges while Nasdaq gains modestly

The Dow rose 461.88 points (1.1%) to 43,870.35, driven by strong gains in IBM, Sherwin-Williams, and Salesforce. The Nasdaq's modest rise was capped by Alphabet's drop amid regulatory pressure while jobless claims fell.

The Dow jumped 461.88 points (1.1%) to 43,870.35 and the S&P 500 climbed 31.60 points (0.5%) to 5,948.71 while the tech-heavy Nasdaq posted a much more modest gain, inching up 6.28 points (less than a tenth of a percent) to 18,972.42. The sharp increase by the Dow came amid strong gains by IBM Corp. (IBM), Sherwin-Williams (SHW) and Salesforce (CRM). Nvidia rose by 0.5%.

Alphabet (GOOGL) steeply dropped limited the upside for Nasdaq. The Justice Department has urged a federal judge to force a sale of the Google parent's Chrome web browser.

 

The Labor Department released a report showing initial jobless claims unexpectedly fell to their lowest level in over six months last week. The report said initial jobless claims slipped to 213,000 in the week ended November 16th, a decrease of 6,000 from the previous week's revised level of 219,000.

The Conference Board said its leading economic index slid by 0.4% in October after dipping by a revised 0.3% in September.

Computer hardware stocks moved upwards with the NYSE Arca Computer Hardware Index soaring by 4.2%. A sharp increase by the price of crude oil also contributed to substantial strength among oil service stocks, as reflected by the 2.5% surge by the Philadelphia Oil Service Index.

Networking stocks significantly moved upwards driving the NYSE Arca Networking Index up by 1.9%. Utilities, banking and natural gas stocks also saw considerable strength while some weakness was visible among airline stocks.

Asia-Pacific stocks moved mostly lower. Japan's Nikkei 225 Index slid by 0.9% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index fell by 0.5% although China's Shanghai Composite Index bucked the downtrend and inched up by 0.1%.

The major European markets moved upwards. the French CAC 40 Index edged up by 0.2%, the German DAX Index and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index advanced by 0.7% and 0.8%.

In the bond market, treasuries moved lower over the course of the session after showing a lack of direction in early trading, Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, rose by 2.6 bps to 4.43%.

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