Stock market news: December 12, 2019 – Yahoo Finance

Stock News

Posted on December 12, 2019

Stocks surged and the S&P 500 hit a fresh record high after President Donald Trump said the U.S. and China were closing in on a trade deal.

The Dow jumped more than 150 points as shares of components Apple (AAPL), Nike (NKE), Microsoft (MSFT) and JPMorgan (JPM) all jumped to record intraday levels.

Here were the main moves in markets, as of 11:30 a.m. ET:

S&P 500 (^GSPC): +0.62%, or 19.38 points
Dow (^DJI): +0.66%, or 184.4 points
Nasdaq (^IXIC): +0.41%, or 35.45 points
WTI crude oil prices (CL=F): +0.77% to $59.21 a barrel
10-year Treasury yield (^TNX): +9.9 bps to 1.889%
Gold (GC=F): -0.2% to $1,472.00 per ounce

Minutes after market open, Trump said in a Twitter post said the U.S. and China were “Getting VERY close to a BIG DEAL with China. They want it, and so do we!”

Stocks, which had been little changed in early trading, jumped after the comment.

The upbeat rhetoric comes just days before a December 15 de facto deadline, on which date tariffs on about $156 billion worth of Chinese imports are set to take effect. Negotiators from both sides have remained in touch in recent days, according to a Bloomberg report citing Chinese Ministry of Commerce spokesperson Gao Feng. And the Wall Street Journal reported later Thursday that U.S. negotiators have offered to halve existing tariffs on Chinese imports and cancel Sunday’s impending round of levies as part of a potential first phase trade deal.

Earlier, investor attention had turned mostly overseas, where the UK’s general election was underway and the European Central Bank (ECB) released its first rate decision under newly installed President Christine Lagarde.

The ECB on Thursday decided to keep its main refinancing rate and deposit facility rate unchanged at 0% and -0.5%, respectively. It also kept its marginal lending facility rate steady at 0.250%. This outcome had been widely expected by consensus economists.

The euro traded roughly unchanged against the dollar (EURUSD=X) in the minutes after the decision, which was released at 7:45 a.m. ET.

[Click here to read Stock Market Live Updates]

Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., December 9, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

The central bank’s monetary policy statement was left virtually unchanged from the October statement, affirming that the ECB will keep rates rates will remain “at their present or lower levels until it has seen the inflation outlook robustly converge to a level sufficiently close to, but below, 2% within its projection horizon.”

The ECB also reiterated its program to repurchase bonds at a monthly rate of 20 billion euros, or $22 billion. This had been one of the final stimulus moves launched by Lagarde’s predecessor Mario Draghi to jumpstart the flagging eurozone economy.

Meanwhile, UK voters headed to the polls Thursday for the country’s third general election in less than five years to decide on a total of 650 Members of Parliament (MPs.) The next election had previously not been set to take place until 2022, but MPs had voted for this December’s election in October as turmoil around Brexit continued.

The election serves as an opportunity for Prime Minister Boris Johnson to win a Parliamentary majority in order to enact his Brexit plan, with both Johnson and predecessor Theresa May having so far failed to convene enough support for any exit deals among their MPs. Johnson has claimed he would deliver Brexit by January 31 if his Conservative party wins a majority.

Polls opened at 2 a.m. ET on Thursday and continue until 5 p.m. ET, after which exit polls will be released.

New unemployment claims in the U.S. rose to the highest level since September 2017 last week, according to the Labor Department’s latest weekly report Thursday.

Initial jobless claims rose to a seasonally adjusted level of 252,000 for the week ended December 7, well above the prior week’s unrevised level of 203,000. Consensus economists had expected new unemployment claims to total 214,000. The latest report brought the four-week moving average of new unemployment claims up by 6,250 to 224,000.

Continuing unemployment claims, however, unexpectedly fell to 1.667 million for the week ended November 30, down from the 1.698 million from the previous week.

A closely watched measure of underlying producer price trends came in lower than expected in November, reaffirming persistently lower inflationary pressures in the U.S.

The headline producer price index (PPI) was flat month over month in November after rising 0.4% in October, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Thursday. Consensus economists had expected producer prices to rise by 0.2% during the month. Over last year, headline PPI rose just 1.1%, versus a 1.3% gain expected.

Excluding volatile food and energy prices, the PPI fell 0.2% month over month, versus a gain of the same magnitude expected. The PPI excluding food, energy and trade services prices was flat, while a rise of 0.2% was anticipated. This measure of PPI rose just 1.3% over last year in November, slowing from a 1.5% annual gain in October.