#Market Snapshot: Dow jumps over 500 points as lawmakers reach temporary debt-limit fix

What’s driving the market?

Sen. Mitch McConnell, the minority leader and Kentucky Republican, effectively ended worries — for now — around the debt ceiling by announcing that Republicans would not filibuster an increase. The move only gives two more months of breathing space, but lawmakers say that will provide enough time for critical negotiations on spending to take place.

“Everyone blinked yesterday, as it became clear — once again — that the politicians, the Federal Reserve and the country’s business leaders will never allow the debt ceiling nonsense to threaten a U.S. default,” said Greg Valliere, chief U.S. policy strategist at AGF Investments, in a note.

At the same time, talks in Switzerland between U.S. and Chinese officials set the stage for reports that U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping will meet virtually before the end of the year. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng
HSI,
+3.07%
stock index surged 3.1%, its strongest one-day surge since July 29.

Energy prices also continued to cool off, reacting to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s statement that gas producer Russia would seek to stabilize prices. U.S. crude-oil futures
CL.1,
+0.84%
continued to retreat from a nearly seven-year high, and the lead U.K. natural-gas contract
GWM00,
-10.48%
dropped 5%.

“Investors welcomed positive talks in the U.S. about the debt ceiling while European traders were also pleased to see Russia offering its energy support to the Old Continent to mitigate the risk of a supply crunch,” said Pierre Veyret, technical analyst at ActivTrades.

In U.S. economic data, the Labor Department said weekly initial claims for unemployment benefits fell 38,000, to 326,000, in the week ended Oct. 2. The September employment report is due Friday morning.

U.S. stock indexes have been volatile in October on concerns about the federal debt ceiling and a rise in bond yields as inflation fears have grown while investors await the third quarter corporate earnings reporting season starting next week.

Which companies are in focus?

• Shares of Levi Strauss & Co.
  LEVI,
  +10.07%
  rose 0.6% after the jeans company late Wednesday beat Wall Street estimates for the quarter and raised its outlook for the year.

• Twitter Inc.
  TWTR,
  +4.41%
  late Wednesday said it was selling MoPub, a mobile-ad network, for $1.05 billion in cash to marketing-software company AppLovin Corp.
  APP,
  +9.30%.
  Twitter shares were up 0.5%, while AppLovin jumped 7.5%.

• Shares of Rocket Lab USA Inc.
  RKLB,
  +7.29%
  rose 9.1%, after an announcement late Wednesday that NASA signed on with the company to demonstrate the U.S. agency’s Advanced Composite Solar Sail System, or ACS3.

What are other assets doing?

• The yield on the 10-year Treasury note
  TMUBMUSD10Y,
  1.559%
  rose 2.8 basis points to 1.55%. Yields and debt prices move in opposite directions.

• The ICE U.S. Dollar Index
  DXY,
  -0.13%,
  a measure of the currency against a basket of six major rivals, was little changed.

• The U.S. oil benchmark
  CL00,
  +0.84%
  was down 0.6% at $76.94 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gold futures
  GC00,
  -0.22%
  were down 0.5%.

• In European equities trade, the Stoxx Europe 600
  SXXP,
  +1.66%
  jumped 1.1% and London’s FTSE 100
  UKX,
  +1.36%
  gained 1%.

• The Hang Seng Index
  HSI,
  +3.07%
  jumped 3.1% in Hong Kong, while Japan’s Nikkei 225
  NIK,
  +0.54%
  gained 0.5%.