• Major US stock indexes rose moderately by the end of today's session

Market news

15 February 2017

Major US stock indexes rose moderately by the end of today's session

Major Wall Street stock indexes finished trading in positive territory, recording-session fifth consecutive increase, after the president of the Donald Trump repeated his promise to cut taxes, as well as thanks to upbeat economic data that increased the chances of a rate hike and raise bank stocks.

According to the report published by the US Department of Commerce on Wednesday, despite the pullback in sales, retail sales of cars rose more than expected in January. The report said that retail sales rose 0.4% in January, followed upwardly revised 1.0% gain in December.

At the same time, a jump in gasoline prices helped push inflation to the strongest monthly gain in nearly four years in January. This is a sign that the steadily increasing pressure on prices that can support additional steps the Fed to raise interest rates this year. The Consumer Price Index, a measure of what Americans pay for everything from seafood to living expenses, increased a seasonally adjusted 0.6% in January compared with the previous month.

In addition, the Federal Reserve said that industrial output fell by 0.3 percent in January, after rising by a revised 0.6 percent in December. Economists had expected production to increase by 0.1 percent compared with growth of 0.8 percent, which was originally reported in the previous month. The decline in production was due to a decrease in the release of public services, which fell by 5.7 percent in January after gaining 5.1 percent in December. Rollback was caused by the fact that the unseasonably warm weather reduced demand for heating. On the other hand, output grew by 2.8 percent in January after a sharp fall of 1.4 percent in December. Manufacturing output increased by 0.2 percent for the second month in a row.

DOW index components ended the day mostly in positive territory (25 of 30). leaders of growth were shares of The Procter & Gamble Company (PG, + 3.54%). Most remaining shares fell Merck & Co., Inc. (MRK, -0.70%).

Almost all sectors of the S & P showed an increase. Leaders of growth were the health sector (+ 1.1%). Most of the basic materials sector fell (-0.4%).

At the close:

Dow + 0.52% 20,611.11 +106.70

Nasdaq + 0.64% 5,819.44 +36.87

S & P + 0.50% 2,349.18 +11.60

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