US close: Dow Jones up 435 points after solid intraday rally

dl nyse new york stock exchange wall st street city finance dow jones nasdaq sp finance dollar dollars us usa united states of america 2 — New York Stock ExchangeSharecast photo / Josh White

Wall Street stocks staged a solid intraday comeback to close sharply higher on Thursday, reclaiming a chunk of the week's losses.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 1.33% at 33,248.28, while the S&P 500 was 1.84% firmer at 4,176.82 and the Nasdaq Composite saw out the session 2.69% softer at 12,316.90.

The Dow Jones closed 435.05 points lower on Thursday after OPEC and its oil-producing allies agreed to hike output in July and August by a larger-than-expected amount as Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues to create chaos in global energy markets.

OPEC+ stated it will increase production by 648,000 barrels a day in both July and August, bringing forward the end of the historic output cuts OPEC+ implemented during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic. WTI crude and Brent futures were 0.55% and 1.14% higher at the close, respectively.

Also drawing an amount of investor attention were comments from Lael Brainard, with the Federal Reserve vice chair saying it was "hard to see the case" for the central bank pausing rate hikes. "We've still got a lot of work to do to get inflation down to our 2% target," she said.

On the macro front, US-based firms announced plans to cut 20,712 jobs in May, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the lowest reading in three months and 15.8% lower than the 24,586 cuts announced in May 2021. So far in 2022, employers announced plans to cut 100,694 jobs - the lowest on record for the first five months of the year.

Elsewhere, private businesses in the US hired 128,000 workers in May of 2022, according to Automatic Data Processing, the lowest level seen since 2020 and well and truly short of forecasts for a reading of 300,000.

Still on data, the Labor Department revealed that the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell by 11,000 to 200,000 in the week ended 28 May, down from the previous week's revised level of 211,000 to beat market expectations of 210,000.

Finally, US factory orders increased 0.2% month-on-month to $533.2bn in April, following a downwardly revised 1.8% gain in March to miss market expectations for a 0.7% rise. According to the Census Bureau, orders slowed in industries producing both durables, up 0.5% on the previous month, and nondurable goods, up 0.2% month-on-month.

In the corporate space, shares in software giant Microsoft closed lower after warning that both quarterly revenue and earnings would fall short of analysts’ estimates.

Hormel Foods lowered the top end of its full-year earnings guidance despite seeing record quarterly sales and double-digit earnings growth, while Designer Brands beat Wall Street expectations with its first-quarter adjusted earnings of $0.48 per share on revenues of $830.5m and net income of $26.2m.

After the close, Lululemon Athletica raised full-year guidance after the activewear maker revealed customers had continued to purchase items throughout its most recent trading quarter despite higher prices.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com

Dow Jones - Risers

Boeing Co. (BA) $140.50 7.54%
Salesforce.Com Inc. (CRM) $188.40 7.00%
Nike Inc. (NKE) $123.41 3.99%
Home Depot Inc. (HD) $305.87 2.92%
Visa Inc. (V) $215.05 2.44%
American Express Co. (AXP) $169.14 2.04%
Apple Inc. (AAPL) $151.21 1.68%
Intel Corp. (INTC) $44.84 1.65%
Walmart Inc. (WMT) $127.51 1.64%
JP Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM) $132.00 1.61%