Wall Street's rally stalls; indexes hold near record highs
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are drifting on Wall Street Thursday after a report showed the pace of layoffs across the country is slowing, though it remains incredibly high.
The S&P 500 was holding steady in early afternoon trading after earlier waffling between a gain of 0.2% and a loss of 0.3%. It’s cooling off following a four-day winning streak that had brought it back within 2% of its record high for the first time since February.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 39 points, or 0.1%, at 27,241, as of 12:15 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was edging up 0.1% toward another record.
Treasury yields and gold were making more notable moves, as investors burrowed into safer ground. Stock markets elsewhere around the world were mixed.
The day’s headline economic report showed that nearly 1.2 million workers applied for unemployment benefits last week. It would have been an astounding number before the coronavirus pandemic leveled the economy. But it’s a slowdown from the prior week’s slightly more than 1.4 million, and it was also not as bad as economists were expecting.
The easing in claims was the first after two weeks of increases, and economists called it an encouraging step. But the threat of more business closures due to the continuing pandemic means the path remains treacherous.
Investors have been pushing stocks higher despite such worries, in part on expectations that Washington will soon agree on more aid for the economy. Negotiators from Congress and the White House are continuing to try to strike a deal that would offer assistance to those out-of-work Americans after $600 weekly in jobless benefits just expired, along with other measures.
Investors say it’s crucial that the aid comes and quickly. The economy has shown signs of...