US stock market today: Wall Street trades in green; Dow jumps 50 points; S&P gains 0.1%

Wall Street traded in green on Thursday as pressure from the bond market eased and investors closely watched signs of weakness in the US labour market.

The S&P 500 gained 0.17% or 10 points to reach 6,459. Dow Jones Industrial Average began the day in red but jumped 54 points or 0.12%, trading at 45,325 at 7.55 PM IST. Nasdaq followed the suit, jumping to 21,524, rising 0.13% or 27 points.

Treasury yields eased following discouraging signals on jobs, with reports pointing to weaker hiring among private employers last month and a potential rise in layoffs last week.

Neither report signalled towards a recession, but a cooling jobs market could prompt the Federal Reserve to cut its main interest rate for the first time this year in the coming weeks. A more comprehensive employment report is due on Friday.

Shares of American Eagle Outfitters surged 26% after the teen fashion retailer posted more than double Wall Street’s expected second-quarter profit late Wednesday. The company benefitted from intense media attention in late July over its deliberately provocative campaign featuring 27-year-old actor Sydney Sweeney.

Google gave back a fraction of Wednesday’s 9.1% rally, slipping less than 1% before the bell. The tech giant had jumped after avoiding some of the worst-case scenarios in its antitrust trial.

Later Thursday, the government is set to release its latest weekly layoffs data, paving the way for the crucial August jobs report on Friday. On Wednesday, official figures showed that US employers had 7.2 million job openings at the end of July, fewer than economists expected, marking another sign of a weakening labour market.

The deteriorating outlook has bolstered expectations that the Fed will lower rates at its meeting later this month. Last month’s July jobs report, which included sharp downward revisions for June and May, rattled markets and led President Donald Trump to sack the head of the agency responsible for compiling the figures.

Lower interest rates could help shore up both the labour market and the wider economy, but the risk remains that easing policy could stoke inflation at a time when Trump’s tariffs may already be pushing up the cost of imports.

In Europe, Germany’s DAX climbed 0.8% by midday, while London’s FTSE 100 edged up 0.2% and the CAC 40 in Paris slipped 0.1%.

Asian markets were largely positive. Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 1.5% to 42,580.27, Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 added 1% to 8,826.50, South Korea’s Kospi gained 0.5% to 3,200.83, Taiwan’s Taiex was up 0.3%, and India’s BSE Sensex added 0.5%.

Chinese markets bucked the trend. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index dropped 1.1% to 25,056.85, while the Shanghai Composite index fell 1.3% to 3,765.88 amid fears of regulatory intervention following sharp stock gains and liquidity concerns.