But tech stocks in the S&P 500 nevertheless rose 1.4%, continuing a remarkable run of resilience that has carried through the pandemic.
The strength in tech stocks, meanwhile, helped lift the Nasdaq composite up 118.49 points, or 1.1%, to 11,264.95, a record high. Smaller companies didn’t fare as well. The Russell 2000 index lost 7.76 points, or 0.5%, to 1,564.30. “The market’s looking through” the worse-than-expected report on jobless claims, said Scott Wren, senior global market strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute. “The trend is for continued improvement in the labor market.”Still, with so much uncertainty still hanging over markets, he said he wouldn’t be surprised to see it take a “time out” after the S&P 500 returned to a record high on Tuesday.
They also showed that several Fed officials aren’t very excited about the idea of putting caps on yields beyond ultrashort-term rates, a move that some investors had been speculating could be next for the central bank to help markets.