U.S. market indexes were higher on Thursday. For the day the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 18392.46 for a gain of 98.76 points or 0.54 percent. The S&P 500 was also higher, closing at 2177.18 for a gain of 14.06 points or 0.65 percent. The Nasdaq Composite closed higher at 5339.52 for a gain of 44.34 points or 0.84 percent. The VIX Volatility Index was lower at 12.06 for a loss of 1.24 points or -9.32 percent.

Source: DJIA, S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite. Google Finance.

Thursday’s Market Movers

Stocks gained Thursday after investors were happy with the Federal Open Market Committee’s decision to keep the federal funds rate unchanged. No change in monetary policy from the Bank of Japan also helped stocks to gain as global markets were stable and yields remained neutral.

The economic calendar on Thursday included the Conference Board’s Leading Indicators, Jobless Claims, the Chicago Fed National Activity Index, the FHFA House Price Index and Existing Home Sales.

The Conference Board’s Leading Indicators report was down -0.2 percent, below consensus of 0.1 percent and also below last month’s report of 0.5 percent. Jobless claims decreased by 8,000 for the week to 252,000. The Chicago Fed National Activity Index was down at -0.55, below consensus of 0.15 and the previous month’s 0.24. The FHFA House Price Index gained 0.5 percent following an increase of 0.3 percent in the previous month and above consensus of 0.4 percent. Existing home sales were down slightly from the previous month at 5.33 million SAAR, a decrease of -0.9 percent. Existing home sales were expected to increase to 5.44 million SAAR.

For the day, stocks trading actively included the following:

Bank of America

Procter & Gamble

Frontier Communications

Chesapeake Energy

Wells Fargo

Ford

Yahoo! Inc

Apple

General Electric

In the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the following stocks led gains:

Procter & Gamble 1.36

Walt Disney 1.10

United Technologies 1.02

Coca-Cola 1.01

Boeing 1.00

Cisco 0.96

Apple 0.94

In the broad market, top sectors included real estate and consumer staples. Technology stocks also gained. The Nasdaq 100 closed at 4891.36 for a gain of 0.77 percent. Stocks leading gains in technology included the following:

Liberty Media Group 6.68

QVC Group 5.11

Discovery Communications 4.06

Liberty Global Group 3.17

In commodities, gold traded higher as evidenced by the SPDR Gold Trust which reported a gain of 0.30 points or 0.24 percent. The dollar was lower for the day as the U.S. Dollar Index was down -0.11 points to -0.12 percent at 95.38.

Small-Cap Stocks

In small-caps, the Russell 2000 Index closed at 1263.44 for a gain of 18.40 points or 1.48 percent. The S&P 600 Small-Cap Index closed at 764.64 for a gain of 11.51 points or 1.53 percent. The Dow Jones Small-Cap Growth TSM Index closed at 7672.61 for a gain of 100.17 points or 1.32 percent. The Dow Jones Small-Cap Value TSM Index closed at 8821.68 for a gain of 134.02 points or 1.54 percent.

Other Notable Indexes

Other notable index closes included the S&P 400 Mid-Cap Index at 1562.94 for a gain of 18.27 points or 1.18 percent; the S&P 100 Index at 963.20 for a gain of 5.95 points or 0.62 percent; the Russell 3000 Index at 1290.51 for a gain of 9.66 points or 0.75 percent; the Russell 1000 Index at 1207.30 for a gain of 8.33 points or 0.69 percent; and the Dow Jones U.S. Select Dividend Index at 622.21 for a gain of 4.43 points or 0.72 percent.