S&P 500 Settles Higher Ahead Of Bank Earnings, Market Volatility Drops

The S&P 500 closed higher on Thursday, driven by a rally in rally in Alphabet Inc GOOGL and Microsoft Corp MSFT shares.

The Labor Department said initial jobless claims dropped to 228,000 for the week ended April 1, compared to expectations of a reading of 200,000.

On Friday, the Labor Department reported the U.S. economy added 236,000 jobs in March, just shy of economist estimates of 240,000 new jobs. U.S. wages grew 4.2% year-over-year, while the unemployment rate ticked lower from 3.6% to 3.5%.

Big banks, including Citigroup Inc. C, Wells Fargo & Co WFC and JPMorgan Chase & Co JPM are scheduled to report earnings this week.

Majority of the sectors on the S&P 500 closed on a positive note, with communication services and utilities stocks recording the biggest gains on Thursday. However, energy stocks bucked the overall market trend, losing around 1.5% during the session.

The Nasdaq 100 gained 0.74% to close at 13,062.60 on Thursday.

The S&P 500 rose 0.36%, while the Dow Jones added 0.01% to 33,485.29 in the previous session.

For the week, the S&P 500 lost 0.1%, while the Dow gained 0.6%

The Chicago Board Options Exchange's CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) fell 3.6% to 18.40 points on Thursday.
What is CBOE Volatility Index?

The CBOE Volatility Index, popularly known as VIX, is a measure of the equity market's expectation of volatility based on S&P 500 index call and put options.

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