US open: Stocks in the green early as traders await stimulus update
Wall Street stocks were in the green after the opening bell on Thursday as market participants continued to look for any potential developments in stimulus talks and thumbed over some key data releases.
As of 1535 GMT, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.50% at 30,306.67, while the S&P 500 was 0.51% firmer at 3,719.93 and the Nasdaq Composite came out the gate 0.61% stronger at 12,735.96.
The Dow Jones opened 152.13 points higher on Thursday, reversing losses recorded in the previous session after congressional leaders appeared to close in on a $900.0bn Covid-19 aid package, which comes as the total number of Covid-19 cases in the US topped 17.39m and deaths surpassed 314,600.
On Thursday, Steny Hoyer, the number two Democrat in the House of Representatives, said he was hopeful a Covid-19 relief package would be approved within hours.
Markets.com's Neil Wilson said: "US stocks opened at record highs as progress towards a fiscal relief package indicated Congress leaders are close to signing off on a $900.0bn programme that includes $600 cheques and enhanced unemployment benefits."
Stocks opened higher after the Federal Reserve vowed to keep buying bonds until the US economic recovery was completed, with chairman Jerome Powell also adding that the central bank would increase its bond purchases if the recovery were to slow down.
Thursday's main focuses were jobless claims data from the Labor Department and housing starts/building permits numbers from the Department of Commerce. Jobless claims in the US rose only slightly last week, increasing by 23,000 to 885,000, ahead of the 780,000 pencilled-in by economists.
Meanwhile, the four-week moving average for initial claims, which aims to smooth out the variations in the data from one week to the next, jumped by 34,250 to 812,500
On to the housing figures, homebuilding and permits increased solidly in November, with housing starts rising 1.2% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.54m units and permits for future homebuilding racing 6.2% to a rate of 1.63m.
Elsewhere on the macro front, activity at factories across the US mid-Atlantic region slowed more quickly than expected at the end of 2020, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia's manufacturing sector index, which dropped from a print of 26.3 for November to 11.1 in December.
Still to come, the Kansas Fed's manufacturing index will be published at 1600 GMT.
In the corporate space, General Mills beat quarterly sales estimates, while Rite Aid shares soared after the group posted a huge profits beat and raised its full-year outlook.