Wall Street shrugs off big GDP miss

The Commerce Department said that the annualized GDP for the March quarter fell 1.40 percent.

Cliff Hodge, Chief Investment Officer for Cornerstone Wealth told Reuters on Thursday that he had a big miss on GDP this morning but just looking at the headline is misleading.

Trade, inventories and government spending were all dragged down, but the consumer held up and business investment was strong. Core PCE came in a bit light, and the shift to services spending bodes well for inflation moving forward. The Fed has some breathing room because of the big headline miss. Buyers on Wall Street agreed, pushing the Down Jones more than 600 points higher in the final hour of trading. The Nasdaq Composite was up 415 points or 3.3 percent, while the Standard and Poor's 500 was ahead 115 points.

The U.S. dollar was all the rage on foreign exchange markets, pushing the other major currencies down to levels not seen since 2002. The euro bounced back to 1.0507 on Thursday after hitting a low of 1.0471. The British pound fell to 1.2466. The Swiss franc fell to 0.9718.

The Canadian dollar was steady at 1.2801. The Australian dollar was sold to 0.7096. The New Zealand dollar was down to 0.6488.

On overseas equity markets, the FTSE 100 in London gained 1.13 percent. In Germany, the Dax increased by 1.35 percent. The Paris-based CAC 40 increased by 0.98 percent.

Japan's Nikkei 225 shot up 461.27 points or 1.75 percent to close Thursday at 26,847. The Australian All Ordinaries rose 95.40 points or 1.26 percent to 7,642. In New Zealand, the S&P NZX 50 rose by 149.57 points or 1.28 percent to 11,875. The Hang Seng gained 329.81 points, or 1.65 percent, in Hong Kong, to 20,276.