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US open: Strong start on Wall Street after jobless claims and durable goods reports impress
Wall Street trading started on a positive note on Thursday, as Facebook jumped at the open following solid quarterly earnings and another strong set of jobless claims and better-than-expected durable goods order numbers.
At 1530 BST, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 were up 0.68% and 0.73%, respectively, while the Nasdaq shot up 1.40%.
Connor Campbell, a financial analyst at SpreadEx, said, "The Dow Jones continued to try and claw back Tuesday night's sizeable losses. The Dow jumped 125 points after the bell, re-crossing 24200, in part boosted by another very strong jobless claims reading and a better than forecast durable goods orders number."
Better-than-expected results from Facebook late in the previous session set the tone after the social media giant said earnings and revenue grew in the first quarter despite the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Revenue in first three months of the year was up 49% compared to the same period a year ago to $11.97bn, surpassing expectations of $11.41bn, while monthly user growth also exceeded forecasts.
Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG, said: "Hurrah for Facebook. The social network's earnings have given risk sentiment a much-needed shot in the arm, with concerns about a drop in advertising revenue allayed for the time being."
Meanwhile, London Capital Group analyst Jasper Lawler said the figures showed that the recent controversy has not led users to leave the network, with Facebook actually proving to be more resilient than most had given it credit for.
Elsewhere, chip maker Advanced Micro Devices jumped 13.65% after reporting better-than-expected quarterly profit late on Tuesday and sounding an upbeat note on its outlook.
Qualcomm was up 1.02% after better-than-expected earnings, as was Ford at 4.29% higher, but eBay retreated 5.70% following a downcast outlook late on Wednesday.
General Motors lost 2.38% despite topping earnings and Hershey lost 0.42% despite sales being boosted by Amplify acquisition.
ConocoPhillips, PepsiCo and UPS were all up in early trading following the release of their quarterly numbers before the opening bell.
Despite the positive tone, market participants continued to keep an eye on government bond yields after the yield on the 10-year Treasury note pushed past 3% earlier this week.
TD Securities said: "The sharp selloff in rates has hijacked market sentiment. The 3% level on the US 10-year does not have any magical properties, but market participants are trying to navigate a global markets regime shift with a toolkit of mostly unstable correlations."
On the data front, in a sign of strength for the US jobs market, initial unemployment claims fell sharply again last week, hitting their lowest level since December 1969.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, initial jobless claims for the week ending on 26 April declined by 24,000 to reach 209,000. Economists had forecast a print of 225,000.
Meanwhile, a key indicator of investment trends in the US rose past forecasts last month, preliminary data from the government showed, although some of the details of the report were a tad weaker-than-expected.
Durable goods orders jumped by 2.6% month-on-month in March to reach $254.9bn, according to the Department of Commerce. That was well above the 1.7% increase that economists had pencilled-in.