Wall Street close: a strong performing month

By FXStreet At the end of the quarter and ahead of earning seasons next week, U.S. stocks performed one of their best-performing months since last October as market sentiment stabilized on the back of a more dovish Yellen.

For the quarter, the Dow advanced 1.5% while the Nasdaq dropped 2.8% and the S&P 500 added 0.7%. However, we have had a bit of a wobble on the last day of the month with the main benchmarks finishing on Wall Street today marginally lower.

Having rallied 6.6% in March, the S&P 500 fell 4 points today, or 0.2%, to close at 2,059 for the session. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 31 points, or 0.2%, to finish at 17,684 for the day and but scored a positive 7.1% for the month. The Nasdaq closed up less than a point at 4,869 on Thursday for a monthly rise of 6.8%.

Elsewhere:

Oil futures finished fractionally higher at $38.34 a barrel having performed in the green by more than 13% over the month.

Gold futures were up $7 today, or 0.6%, to finish at $1,235.60. However, what is very impressive is that the yellow metal was able to run up a whopping 16% during the first quarter in …read more

Source:: FX Street