Commodities futures traders and brokers managed to shrug off a less-than-stellar jobless claims report on Wednesday morning, and both stock index futures and precious metals futures were looking bubbly.
For the week ending October 30, the advance seasonally adjusted unemployment claims figure rose 20,000 to 457,000, up from the previous week's revised figure of 437,000. That breaks a recent positive trend in the job market, where unemployment claims appeared to be falling – but with the Federal Reserve set to inject $600 billion into circulation by buying Treasury bonds, markets didn't appear to be bothered.
Just ahead of the open, Dow Jones Industrial Average index futures were up 87 points to 11,264, while S&P 500 index futures gained 10.2 points to 1,207.50 at 9:14 a.m. EST.
Nasdaq 100 index futures rose 18.50 to 2,182.75 – and the optimism crossed over to global indices as well. FTSE 100 index futures gained 116 points to 5,849, while Nikkei 225 index futures rose 50 points to 9,410. In Hong Kong, Hang Seng index futures surged 468 points to 24,533 at 5:08 a.m. EST, while Brazil's Bovespa index futures climbed 478 points to 73,290 at 9:19 a.m. EST.
Gold and silver traders also got their satisfaction today, after yesterday's QE announcement failed to generate much action in those markets. Comex December gold futures spiked $40.30 to $1,337.6 per troy ounce, while silver futures for delivery next month popped $1.059 to 25.495 per troy ounce.
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