Stocks Close In Positive Territory But Off Best Levels - U.S. Commentary

(RTTNews) - After moving to the upside early in the trading session on Thursday, stocks gave back some ground as the day progressed but still managed to close in positive territory. The upward move came on the heels of the pullback seen in the previous session.

The Dow rose 59.71 points or 0.3 percent to 19,852.24, the Nasdaq climbed 20.18 points or 0.4 percent to 5,456.85 and the S&P 500 advanced 8.75 points or 0.4 percent to 2,262.03.

The strength on Wall Street came as traders continued to digest the Federal Reserve's decision to raise interest rates by a quarter point on Wednesday.

Airline, biotechnology, and semiconductor stocks turned in some of the market's best performances on the day, while considerable weakness was visible among gold stocks.

On the U.S. economic front, the Labor Department released a report showing a modest increase in U.S. consumer prices in the month of November.

The Labor Department said its consumer price index rose by 0.2 percent in November after climbing by 0.4 percent in October. The increase in prices matched economist estimates.

Excluding food and energy prices, the core consumer price index also edged up by 0.2 percent in November following a 0.1 percent uptick in the previous month.

Meanwhile, first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits saw a modest decrease in the week ended December 10th, according to a separate report released by the Labor Department.

The report said initial jobless claims edged down to 254,000, a decrease of 4,000 from the previous week's unrevised level of 258,000. Economists had expected claims to drop to 255,000.

The National Association of Realtors also released a report showing a sharp increase by its index of homebuilder confidence in the month of December.