NEW YORK, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- U.S. stocks finished mixed on Thursday, with the S&P 500 ending at its all-time high, after a last-minute deal was struck to reopen the U.S. government and raise the debt ceiling.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 2.18 points, or 0.01 percent, to 15,371.65 points. The S&P 500 rose 11.61 points, or 0. 67 percent, to 1,733.15 points. The Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 23.72 points, or 0.62 percent, to 3,863.15 points.
"The market in general is doing good. The big thing is tapering. There is no way that the Fed would taper (soon)," Alan Valdes, director of floor trading at DME Securities, told Xinhua Thursday. He believed that the central bank is not going to taper before 2014 and maybe begin to cut back the bond buying programs in next June," noting there would be another fiscal cliff in early 2014.
The stock market has been greatly boosted since it hit a 12- year low in March 2009 by the Fed's quantitative easing to foster the economic growth and create jobs. Wall Street is expected to continue to move higher if the Fed keeps pouring money into the market.
The U.S. government ended its partial shutdown after President Barack Obama signed early Thursday the 11th-hour deal, which has passed both the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and Democrat-led Senate Wednesday night.
The bill funds the government through Jan. 15 and raises the debt ceiling until Feb. 7.
But the temporary fiscal deal has failed to address many of the contentious issues and set up another fiscal debacle in a few months, thus keeping some investors staying on the sidelines.
Moreover, investors turned their focus to downbeat corporate earnings after the ending of government shutdown which had dominated the stock market in the past two weeks.
The blue-chip Dow underperformed the other two major indices, weighed down by International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) and Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
Tech giant IBM posted a 4-percent drop in its third-quarter revenue late Wednesday, missing market expectations. IBM shares tumbled 6.37 percent to 174.83 U.S. dollars, responding to the result.
Before Thursday's opening bell, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the newly-minted Dow component, reported net revenues of 6.72 billion dollars, down 20 percent year-on-year and worse than market consensus. The shares of the giant bank also dipped 2.42 percent to 158.32 dollars.
On the economic front, U.S. jobless claims last week decreased by 15,000 to a seasonally adjusted 358,000, said the Labor Department.
Business activity expanded in October at a slower pace in the mid-Atlantic region, with the reading decreasing to 19.8 from 22.3 in the prior month, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia reported Thursday.
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