Stocks rise as investors eye claims data, bank earnings: Stock market news today

Stocks rallied on Thursday with tech leading the charge higher with crypto’s 2023 surge again in focus with ethereum (ETH-USD) crossing $2,000 for the first time since May 2022.

Near 12:40 p.m. ET on Thursday the S&P 500 (^GSPC) was higher by 0.8%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) was up 0.6%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) rose as much as 1.5%.

The small cap Russell 2000 was also higher by more than 1.1% while gold prices were up 1.4% to trade as high as $2,050 an ounce. Bitcoin (BTC-USD) gained 1.3% to trade back above $30,000 alongside ethereum’s rally to new 2023 highs.

Thursday’s rally in ethereum was attributed to the successful rollout of another upgrade to the Ethereum blockchain.

Crypto-exposed stocks including Coinbase (COIN), Block (SQ), and MicroStrategy (MSTR) were all higher on Thursday.

The March read on producer prices showed some additional moderation in inflation pressures last month, news taken by investors as perhaps suggesting the Federal Reserve is closer to ending its rate-hiking campaign sooner than expected.

Producer prices fell 0.5% in March and rose just 2.7% over the prior year. The BLS said in its release that two-thirds of the drop in producer prices were attributable to a 1% decline in prices for goods, largely driven by gas prices falling last month. On a “core” basis, which excludes the volatile costs of food and energy, producer prices rose 0.1% last month.

Labor market data out Thursday morning also suggested the job market continues to soften with initial filings for unemployment insurance totaling 239,000 for the week ended April 8, the highest since January 2022, according to the government’s latest data.

“Initial jobless claims rose last week, but the labor market stayed tight. We expect claims to trend higher through the rest of the year and peak in Q4 as the economy begins to emerge from a mild recession,” wrote Oren Klachkin, lead US economist at Oxford Economics, in a note to clients on Thursday. “The upcoming labor market downturn will be modest since the drop in demand will be fairly modest and the…

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