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Lower trade gap lifts Wall Street
South East Asia News.Net
Thursday 10th December, 2009
U.S. stocks were higher Thursday as the trade deficit for October declined.
Jobless benefits over the week also dropped to their lowest level in ten months.
Higher exports drove the October trade gap down to $32.9 billion, much lower than expectations.
"As long as the data wasn't particularly negative, it doesn't seem to matter," Doug Roberts, chief investment strategist at Channel Capital Research.com in Shrewsbury, New Jersey told the Reuters newsagency.
"The initial claims couldn't derail that. People just wanted to get long."
Trading was light as investors and traders have begun heading off early for the holidays.
At the close of trading Thursday the Dow Jones Industrials were up 68.78 points or 0.67% at 10,405.83.
The Nasdaq Composite was ahead 7.13 points or 0.33% at 2,190.86.
The Standard and Poor's 500 was up 6.40 points or 0.58% at 1,102.35.
Foreign exchange markets were quiet in late afternoon trading in New York Thursday, although the Australian dollar jumped nearly a cent to .9166, while the Japanese yen retreated to 88.20.
Around the New York close Thursday the euro was a tad weaker at 1.4730. The British pound was little changed at 1.6275, as was the Swiss franc at 1.0256.
The Canadian dollar was slightly stronger at 1.0506.  Email this story to a friend
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