The US markets ended mostly higher on Wednesday amid the Biden administration announced that it supports waiving intellectual patent protections for Covid-19 vaccines, as countries struggle to manufacture the life-saving doses. The continued upward move by the Dow came after the blue chip index bucked the downtrend seen during trading on Tuesday to close modestly higher. Strong gains by Dow Inc., Chevron and Merck helped lift the Dow to a new record closing high. On the economic data front, after reporting an unexpected slowdown in US manufacturing growth earlier this week, the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) released a report showing the pace of US service sector growth also unexpectedly slowed in the month of April. The ISM said its services PMI edged down to 62.7 in April after jumping to an all-time high of 63.7 in March. A reading above 50 still indicates growth in the service sector, but street had expected the index to inch up to 64.3.
Private sector job growth in the US accelerated in the month of April but still came in below street estimate, according to a report released by payroll processor ADP. ADP said private sector employment spiked by 742,000 jobs in April after surging by an upwardly revised 565,000 jobs in March. However, Street had expected private sector employment to soar by 800,000 jobs compared to the jump of 517,000 jobs originally reported for the previous month. Chief economist at ADP, Nela Richardson said the labor market continues an upward trend of acceleration and growth, posting the strongest reading since September 2020. The report showed notable job growth in the goods-producing sector, which added 106,000 jobs amid increases in both manufacturing and construction jobs.
Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 97.31 points or 0.29 percent to 34,230.34 and S&P 500 was up by 2.93 points or 0.07 percent to 4,167.59, while Nasdaq slipped 51.08 points or 0.37 percent to 13,582.42.