NEW YORK: Wall Street stocks edged up early Thursday following mixed economic data as markets largely shrugged off the apparent aversion of a major freight rail strike.
US retail sales rose surprisingly in August in the latest illustration of the resiliency of American consumers. However, analysts noted the report also downgraded growth in the prior month, tempering the significance of the August data.
Weekly jobless claims retreated, while US industry output fell modestly in August, other reports showed.
US President Joe Biden announced that rail companies and unions reached a “tentative” deal to avert a major strike over the weekend.
While the agreement is positive news, “the market never really thought a national railroad strike would be allowed to happen – or happen for more than a few days – given the adverse impact such a strike would have on the economy,” said Briefing.com analyst Patrick O’Hare.
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About 25 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.3 percent at 31,212.31.
The broad-based S&P 500 edged up 0.1 percent to 3,948.62, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index added less than 0.1 percent at 11,723.71.
Among individual companies, Adobe slumped 14.4 percent after agreeing to acquire Figma, an Internet-based collaborative design platform, for $20 billion in cash and stock.
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