Dow Wraps Up Historic September

By Melinda Peer 09/30/10 - 04:46 PM EDT

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed the day down 47 points, or 0.4%, at 10,788. The S&P 500 dipped 4 points, or 0.3%, to 1,141 and the Nasdaq Composite fell 8 points, or 0.3%, to 2,368.
Overall, the Dow rose 777 points, or 7.7%, in September, its biggest appreciation during what is historically a bad month for the the blue-chip index since 1939. The S&P 500 jumped 92 points, or 8.8%, while the Nasdaq had the most impressive gain of all, climbing nearly 12% during the period. The unexpectedly euphoric rise of equities was fueled by an abatement of concerns about a double-dip recession as well as the prospect of further quantitative easing.

Thursday began with better-than-expected economic data. The Department of Commerce said thatthe U.S. economy grew 1.7% in the second quarter, in its third and final read on gross domestic product for the period. The increase was slightly stronger than the rise of 1.6% that economists had been expecting, according to Briefing.com.
"I expected that the revision needed to come in at 1.6% or slightly higher and it came in slightly above largely because we had a stronger dollar in the second quarter, which bodes well for imports," said Rob Russell, president of Russell & Co. "If you look at the GDP revision, it was really the imports that did it. And now we're in a period of a falling dollar so exports become more important."
Despite the boost that the better-than-expected data gave to stocks, Russell did not think it was a strong enough sign to significantly impact confidence.
"We're in a period of hibernation and that's what GDP is showing us, but we're still not hiring, and that's going to drag on GDP in the future," he said.
The Department of Labor said initial jobless claims shed 16,000 to 453,000 in the week ended Sept. 25. According to Briefing.com, economists had been expecting a milder decline to 457,000 from 469,000, previously.

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