Off the wire
• 1st LD: 4 wounded in Petah Tikva shooting attack in Israel  • Swiss unemployment rate up in January: report  • German president calls for strong, united EU  • 2 missing in collapse of subway wall in Iran  • Singapore, US top diplomats reaffirm bilateral ties over phone call  • Urgent: Putin expresses condolences over Turkish soldiers' death in Russian strike  • Russian jet mistakenly kills 3 Turkish soldiers in Syria  • Urgent: 3 wounded in market shooting near Tel Aviv  • EU lawmakers push for new rules on car approvals after Dieselgate scandal  • Britain wants its own space launch facilities by 2020, says minister  
You are here: 　 Home

U.S. stocks open higher Thursday, investors focus on economic data

Xinhua, February 9, 2017 Adjust font size:

U.S. stocks opened higher on Thursday, as investors mainly focused on economic data and a speech from St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard.

On the economic front, in the week ending Feb. 4, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 234,000, a decrease of 12,000 from the previous week's unrevised level of 246,000, the U.S. Labor Department announced Thursday.

Meanwhile, Fed official Bullard said U.S. interest rates can remain low throughout at least 2017, with no clear sense yet of whether the new Trump administration's policies will touch off higher inflation or growth, according to reports.

In corporate news, shares of Twitter tumbled over 10 percent in early trading Thursday, after the social media giant posted weaker-than-expected financial results of the fourth quarter last year.

The latest data, according to reports, showed that the S&P 500 companies' blended earnings in the fourth quarter of 2016 are expected to rise 8.3 percent year on year, while the revenues are forecast to increase 4.3 percent.

Shortly after the opening bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 38.90 points, or 0.19 percent, to 20,093.24. The S&P 500 rose 4.52 points, or 0.20 percent, to 2,299.19. The Nasdaq Composite Index gained 13.35 points, or 0.23 percent, to 5,695.80.

U.S. stocks finished mixed Wednesday, with the Nasdaq Composite Index eclipsing the previous day's closing record, as investors digested a slew of corporate earnings reports. Endi