U.S. stock indexes opened mixed on Thursday after the House of Representatives passed a debt-ceiling bill, keeping Washington on track to meet the Treasury Department’s deadline next Monday and avoid a U.S. default. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA was off 103 points, or 0.3%, to 32,791. The S&P 500 SPX and the Nasdaq Composite COMP each gained less than 0.1%. The U.S. House of Representatives Wednesday evening passed a bill to suspend the nation’s debt limit through January 1, 2025. The bill, called the Fiscal Responsibility Act, will now need to be passed by the Senate before it can be sent to President Joe Biden to be signed into law. Investors are also evaluating the health of the labor market which might be a game changer for the Federal Reserve’s next interest-rate decision in mid-June. U.S. private sector payrolls rose by 278,000 in May, far above Wall Street’s estimates of 180,000, according to the payroll services firm ADP on Thursday. Meanwhile, the number of Americans who applied for unemployment benefits at the end of May edged up to a one-month high of 232,000, but there’s no sign of major layoffs and many businesses are still hiring.
Market Pulse Stories are Rapid-fire, short news bursts on stocks and markets as they move. Visit MarketWatch.com for more information on this news.