Markets mixed, US stocks have “no place to go but up”

Markets were mixed on Thursday.

The S&P 500 rose 0.3 percent but the STOXX Europe 600 fell 1.1 percent and the Nikkei 225 fell 1.0 percent.

A report in the US on Thursday showed that new applications for unemployment benefits rose to 1.11 million last week from 971,000 in the prior week.

“Without additional fiscal and monetary policy support, and income replacement in particular, it will be harder for this market to accelerate because the labor market isn’t recovering as fast as we hoped,” said Michael Arone, chief investment strategist for State Street Global Advisors.

Still, Kenneth Rapoza at Forbes wrote that “the market has no place to go but up”.

“There is no obstacle to further gains,” Mark Haefele, the chief investment officer for UBS Global Wealth Management, was quoted by Rapoza as saying.