The stock markets in the United States fluctuated and ended the trading session slightly changed today. The Dow Jones was down 0.03% while the S&P 500 was flat. The NASDAQ and Russell 2000 gained 0.33% and 0.18%, respectively. Sign up for our free newsletter Today, the Department of Commerce reported that the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) expanded 2.3% on an annualized rate. On the other hand, the Department of Labor reported that the number of people who applied for unemployment benefits increased 12,000 to 267,000 for the week ended July 27. The Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC) was satisfied with labor market citing continued improvement with solid job gains and declining unemployment. The central bank said it would raise the federal funds rate when further improvement in the labor market and reasonably confident that inflation returns to its 2% target. Commenting on the market trends, Richard Sichel, chief investment officer at... More