The US markets ended mostly higher on Wednesday as optimism about strong economic recovery outweighed concerns about inflation and possibility of interest rate hikes happening next year. Investors reacted to data on private sector employment, pending home sales and the reading on Chicago Business Barometer, and looked ahead to crucial non-farm payrolls data, due on Friday. Data from Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (ADP) showed private business in the US hired 692,000 workers in the month of June, higher than an expected addition of 600,000. However, the hiring in June was much below a downwardly revised 886,000 job additions in May.
Data released by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) showed pending home sales in the US increased by 13.1% year-on-year in May, after soaring by a record 51.7% in April. Meanwhile, according to a report released by the Institute for Supply Management (ISM), the MNI Chicago Business Barometer came in with a reading of 66.1 for June, down from a score of 75.2 in the previous month. Though, the surge in infections due to the delta variant of the coronavirus, and curbs on travel in several countries raised some uncertainty about the pace of global economic rebound and rendered the mood cautious.
Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 210.22 points or 0.61 percent to 34,502.51 and S&P 500 was up by 5.7 points or 0.13 percent to 4,297.5, while Nasdaq fell 24.38 points or 0.17 percent to 14,503.95.