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1st LD Writethru: U.S. stocks end higher despite soft data

Xinhua, February 5, 2016 Adjust font size:

U.S. stocks closed mildly higher after wavering between gains and losses Thursday, as Wall Street meditated on a batch of weaker-than-expected economic reports.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 79.92 points, or 0.49 percent, to 16,416.58. The S&P 500 gained 2.92 points, or 0.15 percent, to 1,915.45. The Nasdaq Composite Index inched up 5.32 points, or 0.12 percent, to 4,509.56.

In the week ending Jan. 30, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims increased 8,000 from the previous week's revised level to 285,000, above market consensus of 280,000, the U.S. Labor Department reported Thursday.

The four-week moving average was 284,750, an increase of 2,000 from the previous week's revised average.

In a separate report, the department said that U.S. nonfarm business sector labor productivity decreased at a 3.0-percent annual rate during the fourth quarter of 2015.

Meanwhile, U.S. new orders for manufactured goods in December, down four of the last five months, decreased 13.5 billion U.S. dollars or 2.9 percent to 456.5 billion dollars, the Commerce Department announced Thursday.

The recent weak data raised expectations that the U.S. Federal Reserve would go slow on future interest rate hikes.

Fed official William Dudley said on Wednesday that policy makers are "acknowledging that things have happened in financial markets and in the flow of the economic data that may be in the process of altering the outlook for growth and the risk to the outlook for growth going forward."

Analysts said Dudley's remarks hinted that the U.S. central bank may be unable to raise interest rates this year given the country's sluggish economic growth. Endit