Thursday's Stock Market Close: US Equities Rise As Market Shrugs Off Trump Impeachment

U.S. stocks rose on Thursday, shrugging off the impeachment of President Donald Trump by the House of Representatives.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 137 points to 28,376.28 while the S&P 500 climbed 14.14 points to 3,205.28 and the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 59.48 points to 8,887.22.

Volume on the New York Stock Exchange totaled 2.77 billion shares with 1,699 issues advancing, 219 setting new highs, and 1,248 declining, with 42 setting new lows.

Active movers were led by Micron Technology Inc. (MU), Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) and Rite Aid Corp. (RAD).

Wall Street appears confident Trump will not be convicted in January in a Senate controlled by Republicans.

“It’s fairly obvious that there just not going to be a removal,” said Tom Martin, senior portfolio manager at Globalt. “As we’ve gone through this, we’ve seen it’s become very partisan. All of that amounts to a neutral, and even somewhat positive, set up for the market. What you’re seeing is this situation where there is a lot of stability, or a lot more than there had been.”

Joe Watkins, former White House aide for President George H.W. Bush told CNBC: “If Democrats meant to diminish the strength of the president, I think the opposite is going to happen.”

Separately, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told CNBC he is “very confident” that the U.S. and Chinese will sign their phase one trade deal in early January.

“It’s just going through what I would consider to be a technical, legal scrub and we’ll be releasing the document and signing it in the beginning of January,” he said.

Initial jobless claims decreased by 18,000 to a seasonally adjusted 234,000 for the week ended Dec. 14, the Labor Department said. Economists had expected claims to fall to 225,000.

The Philadelphia Fed said Thursday its index of business activity in the region plunged in December to 0.3 -- the lowest level in six months -- from 10.4 in the previous month. Economists had expected a reading of 8.

The U.S. current-account deficit declined 0.9% in the third quarter to $124.1 billion from a revised figure of $125.2 billion in the second quarter.

The National Association of Realtors said sales of existing homes slipped 1.7% in November to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.35 million.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration said Thursday domestic natural gas supplies dropped by 107 billion cubic feet for the week ended Dec. 13. Analysts had expected a fall of 93 billion cubic feet.

The Conference Board’s Leading Economic Index was flat at 111.6 in November, following a 0.2% decline in October.

"The [Leading Economic Index] was unchanged in November after three consecutive monthly declines," said Ataman Ozyildirim, senior director of economic research at the Conference Board. "Strength in residential construction, financial markets, and consumers' outlook offset weakness in manufacturing and labor markets."

Overseas, the Bank of England kept its main interest rate unchanged at 0.75%. “If global growth fails to stabilize or Brexit uncertainties remain entrenched, monetary policy may need to reinforce the expected U.K. recovery,” the bank stated.

Sweden's central bank, the Riksbank, raised its key interest rate to zero from negative-0.25%, but added it does not plan to raise the key rate further next year. Sweden has had subzero rates since 2009.

On Thursday, China’s Finance Ministry released a new list of import tariff exemptions for six chemical and oil products from the U.S. The exemptions will last for one year from Dec. 26.

Overnight in Asia, markets finished mostly lower. The Hang Seng slipped 0.3% while Japan’s Nikkei-225 fell 0.29% and China’s Shanghai Composite was flat.

European markets finished mixed with the FTSE 100 up 0.44% while Germany's DAX fell 0.08% and France's CAC 40 climbed 0.21%.

Crude oil futures rose 0.61% at $61.31 per barrel and Brent crude fell 0.11% at $66.47. Gold futures climbed 0.3%.

The euro rose 0.1% at $1.1124 while the pound sterling dropped 0.5% at $1.3013.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury dropped 0.83% to 1.908% while yield on the 30-year Treasury slipped 0.3% to 2.344%.