Another Jobs Milestone Pleases Investors

More good news on the jobs front helped keep Wall Street (mostly) in positive territory on Thursday. The benchmark S&P 500 ticked up 4 points to 4,200, the Dow gained 141 points to 34,464, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq slipped a point to 13,736. Earlier in the day, the Commerce Department reported that weekly jobless claims dropped to a pandemic low of 406,000, reports the Wall Street Journal. Another sign of recovery: The economy grew at a solid rate of 6.4% in the first quarter, per the AP. But this being Wall Street, the good news was tempered with worry.

“Now that we are moving along with the recovery, we’re dealing with some potential issues that include higher inflation,” Katerina Simonetti of Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management tells the Journal. “Even though the Federal Reserve is going with the narrative that it is perhaps temporary in nature and it is post-Covid-recovery driven, it’s still a concern on a lot of investors’ minds.” CNBC, meanwhile, isn't expecting things to change much on Friday—it forecasts "muted" trading ahead of the Memorial Day holiday. (More stock market stories.)