Wall Street Close: Chevron and Exxon helped to lift DJIA 450 points
|- NASDAQ unofficially closes up 124.24 points, or 1.69 percent, at 7,484.83.
- S&P 500 unofficially closes up 55.93 points, or 2.26 percent, at 2,526.43.
- DJIA unofficially closes up 451.11 points, or 2.15 percent, at 21,394.62.
Wall Street closed in the green on Thursday with a bid in the oil sector as the sounds of Russian/Suadi production cuts ricocheted through the markets, lifting likes of shares of Chevron and Exxon Mobil and projecting the Dow Jones Industrial Average around 450 points higher. In other not so promising news, the US data was appalling, cases of COVID-19 surpass the 1 million mark and Chinese outbreaks send people back into lockdown.
Overall, it was a mixed day and there was something for everyone and the bulls ran with whatever good news they could, taking up willing seller's offers across the board. consequently, the S&P 500 added 2.2% to 2,527. The Dow Jones Industrial Average put 470 points, or 2.2%, to 21,413, based on preliminary numbers. The Nasdaq Composite was up 1.7% to 7,487.
First, for the good news, President Donald Trump said he expects Russia and Saudi Arabia to cut oil production by as much as 15 million barrels a day.
The news sent both Chevron and Exxon Mobil on a tear and they both contributed to about one-third of the blue-chip gauge's intraday rally. Chevron's shares were up 11.2%, and Exxon Mobil was up 7.6% making for a combined 71-point boost for the Dow.
As for the bad news, US initial jobless claims have jumped around 10 million over the past two weeks which is likely to push the April unemployment rate up to 9.5%, and the job losses are likely to end up even higher in coming weeks as COVID-19 destroys the US economy.
"US initial jobless claims surged to 6.65 million in another week for the record books, following last week’s record rise to 3.3 million. Cumulatively, this puts initial claims over the past two weeks at just under the 10 million mark. During the GFC, non-farm payrolls fell by 8 million, though these don’t map exactly. It all points to a significant rise in the unemployment rate," analysts at ANZ bank explained.
Meanwhile, the COVID-19 numbers of cases surpassed the one million mark with over a 50,000 death toll, more on that here: Breaking: COVID-19 cases surpass 1M worldwide with over 50,000 death toll
DJIA levels
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