Wall Street had a relatively calm day amid what has been a turbulent week. The Dow rose a modest 25 points to 34,823, the S&P 500 ticked up 8 points to 4,367, and the Nasdaq gained 52 points to 14,684. The big focus this week has been on earnings reports, which have generally been coming in stronger than expected. “The earnings results have continued to be strong and guidance is showing that the delta variant isn’t impacting the recovery, so far at least,” Esty Dwek of Natixis Investment Managers tells the Wall Street Journal. “That is giving confidence to the market that the recovery can continue.”
The earnings reports helped balance new unemployment figures that were worse than expected. The Labor Department reported Thursday that 419,000 people applied for benefits last week, the biggest increase in two months, per the AP. While the market tanked on Monday, with the Dow falling more than 700 points, those losses have since been erased. CNBC reports that tech stocks in particular were doing well on Thursday, in anticipation of earnings reports in that sector that come out next week. (More stock market stories.)
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