Shares on Wall Street rallied for a third day on Thur. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 417.66 pts, or 1.23%, to close at 34,480.76. The Dow is on pace for its first positive week in six.
The S&P 500 index rose 1.23% on Thur. The S&P 500 jumped more than 3% in the previous two sessions.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite advanced 1.33% and the small-cap Russell 2000 gained 1.69% on Thur.
Occidental Petroleum (OXY US, +9.47%) shares soared after Berkshire Hathaway (BRK/A US, +2.86%) snapped up 18.1m additional shares, boosting its stake to 14.6%.
The US Energy Department signaled more aid for current and future nuclear reactors. Shares of the world’s largest uranium miner, Cameco (CCO CN, +8.93%), rose as well as those of miners BHP (BHP LN, +1.42%) and Rio Tinto (RIO LN, +3.27%).
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note slipped 1.42 basis points (bps) to 2.1706%. The most actively traded US gold futures (Apr) contracts settled up $34.00, or 1.8%, at US$1,943.20/oz. May silver, which is the most actively traded silver futures, rose 90.6 cents, or 3.7%, to end at US$25.616/oz.
The ICE dollar index (DXY), which measures the strength of the greenback against a basket of currencies, fell 0.65% to 97.974. The front-month Brent and WTI futures closed up $8.62 at US$106.64/bbl and $7.94 at US$102.98/bbl respectively.
European equity markets finished mixed on Thur. The UK FTSE gained 1.28%, France's CAC 40 rose 0.36%, while the German DAX retreated 0.36%.
Policymakers at the Bank of England (BOE) raised rates by 25 bps to 0.75% on Thur. The BOE said more tightening "might be" appropriate in coming months, compared with last month's comment that it was "likely." Ten-year gilt yields slumped as much as 11 bps and the pound weakened 0.3% to US$1.3096.