Dow soars 300 points as day-trader restrictions soothe market nerves

Dow soars 300 points as day-trader restrictions soothe market nerves

US stocks moved higher on Thursday as several brokerage firms placed trading restrictions on a handful of volatile stocks popular with Reddit traders. Robinhood, Interactive Brokers, and WeBull restricted its users from buying shares in volatile stocks that have been short-squeezed by a traders on Reddit's WallStreetBets forum. Additionally, weekly jobless claims fell to a three-week low, hitting 847, 000. That's better than analysts expectations of 875, 000 jobless claims, and represented a 7% decline form last week's figure. Continuing claims, which track Americans receiving unemployment-insurance payments, dropped to 4. 8 million for the week that ended January 16. Economists expected continuing claims to total 5. 1 million. Here's where US indexes stood after the 9:30 a. m. ET open on Thursday: The epic short squeeze in GameStop briefly continued in early Thursday trades, with shares soaring as much as 40% to almost $500 in the pre-market session. But Robinhood's decision to limit trading in the stock deflated Thursday's rally, with the stock ultimately falling more than 30%. American Airlines benefited from Reddit traders pitching the stock as a potential short-squeeze candidate. The stock soared as much as 31% after the company reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings. Apple's fourth-quarter earnings report