U.S. stocks traded higher toward the end of trading, with the Dow Jones gaining more than 300 points on Thursday.

The Dow traded up 1.09% to 34,013.93 while the NASDAQ rose 2% to 12,167. The S&P 500, also rose, gaining, 1.30% to 4,145.27.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

• Consumer discretionary shares rose by 2.3% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included Faraday Future Intelligent Electric Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIE), up 13%, and WW International, Inc. (NASDAQ:WW), up 12%.
• In trading on Thursday, real estate fell by 0.4%.

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U.S. natural-gas supplies climbed 25 billion cubic feet last week, the EIA said.

Equities Trading UP

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 1.2% to $82.25 while gold traded up 1.4% at $2,052.50.

Silver traded up 1.8% to $25.925 on Thursday while copper rose 1.3% to $4.1320.

Euro zone

European shares were mostly higher today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 rose 0.40%, London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.24% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index rose 0.34%. The German DAX rose 0.16%, French CAC 40 rose 1.13% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index fell 0.01%.

Industrial production in the Eurozone increased by 1.5% from a month ago in February, while industrial production in Italy slipped 0.2% from a month earlier. German consumer price inflation came in at 7.4% year-over-year in March.

The UK trade deficit increased to £4.81 billion in February from a revised £3.49 billion gap in the prior month, while industrial production dropped 0.2% month-over-month in February. The UK economy stalled in February versus a revised 0.4% expansion in January.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed mostly higher on Thursday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 gaining 0.26%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index gaining 0.17% and China’s Shanghai Composite Index dropping 0.27%. India’s S&P BSE Sensex rose 0.1%.

China's trade surplus increased to $88.19 billion in March from $44.35 billion in the year-ago. Australian unemployment rate came in unchanged at 3.5% in March. Indian merchandise trade deficit increased to $19.70 billion in March from $18.51 billion in the year-ago month.

Economics

• Producer prices for final demand declined 0.5% month-over-month in March, recording the biggest drop since April 2020.
• U.S. jobless claims climbed by 11 thousand to 239 thousand in the week ending April 8, 2023.
• U.S. natural-gas supplies climbed 25 billion cubic feet last week, the EIA said.

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COVID-19 Update

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 106,418,590 cases with around 1,157,460 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,786,160 cases and 531,030 deaths, while France reported over 39,867,460 COVID-19 cases with 165,910 deaths. In total, there were at least 685,297,580 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,840,150 deaths.