Stocks Trade With Gains
Stocks in New York opened their final session of a traumatic market year on a mixed note Wednesday, as weekly jobless claims data came in significantly below expectations.
The
Dow Jones Industrial Average
was up 31 points at 8700, and the
S&P 500
was gaining 2.2 points at 892. The
Nasdaq
was up 8 points at 1558.
The number of people seeking
unemployment benefits
fell to 492,000 from 586,000 a week prior and well below economists' expectation for 575,000. However, "seasonal factor volatility" played a part according to the Department of Labor.
"Until there's more clarity, I would not yet put jobless claims on a list of figures suggesting the worst has thus far been seen. It is a list that remains nearly empty," writes Tony Crescenzi, chief bond market strategist for Miller Tabak, on his
.
The number of people continuing to draw claims, however, climbed to 4.5 million, the highest since 1982.
Meanwhile, disgraced investor
Bernard Madoff
is scheduled to submit a list of his personal assets to the
Securities and Exchange Commission
on Wednesday, including property that could be tapped to make restitution to victims of his $50 billion Ponzi scheme.
Stocks in New York ended higher Tuesday after investors shrugged off the release of the worst consumer confidence figures on record and prepared to close the book on a historic year.
Fitting in one last bailout in 2008, the Treasury Department said Tuesday it will provide $5 billion to
GMAC Financial Services
, GM's auto and mortgage financing arm, in return for preferred shares that pay an 8% dividend and warrants to purchase additional shares.
In commodities, oil was recently down 93 cents at $38.10 a barrel, while gold gave up $7.70 to $862.30 an ounce.
Longer-dated U.S. Treasury securities were recently falling. The 10-year note was giving up 13/32 to yield 2.1%, and the 30-year was down 22/32, yielding 2.6%. The dollar was stronger against the euro and the yen, and weaker against the pound.
Overseas, the FTSE in London was edging higher, and the Hong Kong's Hang Seng ended with gains.
Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. AP contributed to this report.
