WASHINGTON, June 5 — Wall Street stocks rose early today, shrugging off weak private-sector hiring data and extending a rally following more dovish Federal Reserve statements.

Comments from Fed officials this week have opened the door to a possible interest rate cut, enabling investors to shift focus from ongoing trade conflicts that have dented sentiment.

About 15 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at 25,448.90, up 0.5 per cent.

The broad-based S&P 500 advanced 0.4 per cent to 2,813.61, and the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index also climbed 0.4 per cent to 7,558.78.

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Payrolls firm ADP estimated that US companies added just 27,000 new jobs in May, a fraction of the expected figure and the weakest result in more than nine years. 

The report comes ahead of Friday’s more closely-watched Labor Department employment report.

But investors have cheered comments from Fed Chair Jerome Powell yesterday that acknowledged the economic risks connected to trade wars and said the Fed was willing to act if needed to support growth.

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A day earlier another voting member of the Fed’s policy-setting committee said he expected an interest rate cut may be warranted soon.

Powell’s remarks lifted major US indices yesterday by more than two per cent.

Among individual companies today, cloud computing company Salesforce surged 3.3 per cent after reporting a 14 per cent jump in quarterly profits to US$392 million (RM1.6 billion) on higher sales. — AFP