Wall Street’s “horror” at the speculation reported by Bloomberg that President Biden was considering a hike in the capital gains tax to north of 40% overshadowed today’s good news on further progress in the post-vaccine economic recovery.
But solid good news it was.
Americans filed 547,000 first-time unemployment claims last week, the Labor Department reported. That marked a pandemic low for a second week in a row.
Last week’s surprise drop was revised to 586,000 initial claims.
An additional 133,319 Americans filed new claims for unemployment in Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program for gig and self-employed workers not eligible for regular state unemployment programs.
At the close today, April 22, the Standard & Poor’s 500 was down 0.92% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average had dropped 0.94%. Th NASDA Composite was off 0.94% and the Big Tech heavy NASDAQ 100 was lower by 1.21%. The small cap Russell 2000 lost 0.31%
