Signs of better job market give stocks a record day
NEW YORK — A broad-based push higher for stocks sent indexes to records on Thursday following yet more signs that the job market continues to improve.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index pierced the 2,420-point level for the first time during the morning and kept going. The Dow Jones industrial average and the Nasdaq also set record highs.
Smaller stocks had even bigger gains, and the small-cap Russell 200 index jumped 1.9 percent to 1,396.06, though it remains shy of its record.
Driving stocks higher was a report indicating that employers picked up their hiring last month. Payroll processor ADP said private businesses added 253,000 jobs in May, more than economists expected. It’s a reassurance, particularly when growth of the overall economy has been frustratingly tepid.
The U.S. government’s more comprehensive report on jobs arrives on Friday.
Thursday’s data gave yet more encouragement to investors, many of whom were already looking to buy.
“What you have, it would appear, is an acceleration in earnings with a low inflationary environment, which is Goldilocks,” said Linda Duessel, senior equity strategist at Federated Investors.
President Donald Trump’s announcement late in the trading day that the U.S. would withdraw from the worldwide agreement on climate change had little effect on markets.