NEW YORK: Wall Street's main indexes were largely flat on Thursday, as gains in financial and energy shares helped recoup early losses on an alarming rise in new coronavirus cases and elevated jobless claims.
All three indexes briefly turned positive in the session, a day after posting their worst day in two weeks.
"It appears that the market may have entered into a new stage of needing direction. It doesn't seem that the worries over a virus resurgence are enough to truly start forming a down leg of a W-shaped recovery," said JJ Kinahan, chief market strategist at TD Ameritrade.
"But without some new catalyst to give market participants some optimism, stocks might not be able to move much higher either."
Spikes in novel US coronavirus cases will likely trigger closures in some places but not a nationwide shutdown, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said, as a number of states posted a record rise in infections.
Meanwhile, data showed the number of Americans filing claims for unemployment benefits fell less than expected last week likely as hiring by reopening businesses is being partially offset by a second wave of layoffs.
After coming within 5% of its record high in early June, the benchmark S&P 500 has lost nearly 6% in the past two weeks and analysts cautioned further declines amid worsening economic forecasts.
At 10:53 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1.73 points, or 0.01%, at 25,444.21, the S&P 500 was down 0.99 points, or 0.03%, at 3,049.34. The Nasdaq Composite was down 0.56 points, or 0.01%, at 9,908.61.
Wall Street's fear gauge, the CBOE volatility index, rose to 34.52 points.
Comments
Comments are closed.