The US stock market closed with a significant increase on Thursday after the publication of data indicating a weakening of the US labor market. According to a report by the US Department of Labor, the number of Americans who applied for unemployment benefits for the first time increased by 9 thousand last week – up to 225 thousand people. The number of Americans continuing to receive unemployment benefits jumped by 41 thousand, to the highest since February (1.71 million applications). Weak statistics were perceived by market participants as another argument in favor of the fact that the US Federal Reserve will accelerate the pace of completion of monetary policy tightening. As you know, the weakening of the labor market is positive news for the Federal Reserve. The US stock market reacted to the new report with a significant increase. However, despite this, experts note that the outgoing year may be the worst for the US stock market since 2008 – mainly due to the rapid pace of interest rate increases by the Fed in an attempt to overcome high inflation. In particular, the S&P 500 index rose to 3,849.28 points. At the same time, the index lost half of the advantage gained from October to November. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.05% to 33220.8 points. The Standard & Poor's 500 increased by 0.75% to 3,849.28 points. The Nasdaq Composite jumped 2.59% to 1,0478.09 points.
