The previous two weeks saw the Dow shed almost 1,000 points from its all-time high, but the market’s regained more than half of it in the past two days.
Wall Street continued its momentum from Wednesday’s Federal Reserve statement, in which Chairperson Janet Yellen stressed that the central bank would show ‘patience’ in moving interest rates off their current near-zero level.
On the downside, however, oil resumed its freefall, losing all of the ground it made up on Wednesday–and then some. By the close of the day, oil was trading below $55 a barrel—a level unseen in more than five years. On the flip side, however, Americans are paying less than $2.50 per gallon of gas on average for the first time in that same five-year period.
The market still sits a little more than 200 points off of its all-time high achieved on December 5. In that time, however, markets have experienced a swing of over 1,600 points! With two consecutive holiday-shortened weeks on the horizon, it will be interesting to see if the volatility continues for the rest of 2014.
Here were the final numbers from Wall Street on Thursday:
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 17,778.15 (+421.28)
NASDAQ: 4,748.40 (+104.08)
S&P 500: 2,061.23 (+48.34)
