Day Traders Diary

8/30/23

The major averages closed higher, building on a three-day winning streak to end the month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 37 points. The S&P 500 rose 17 points while the Nasdaq rose 75 points or 0.54%.

The rally was led by tech once again as chipmaker Nvidia rose nearly 1%. Apple jumped nearly 2% while Dow component, Salesforce is up 5% after hours following earnings.  

Wednesday's moves come as traders pore over disappointing payrolls data. ADP said private employers added 177,000 jobs in August. That's well below a revised July number of 371,000. It also missed a Dow Jones estimate of 200,000. Annual gross domestic product growth was downwardly revised on Wednesday to 2.1% from the previous 2.4% forecast.

On Tuesday, the major U.S. stock benchmarks rallied following the release of disappointing consumer confidence figures and a bigger-than-forecast drop in U.S. job openings for July. This sparked hope among traders that the Federal Reserve could lighten its policy stance sometime soon.