The US markets ended lower on Thursday on account of profit taking following the uptrend trend seen over the past several sessions. Further, sentiments were remained weak following a mixed round of earnings, with investors battering companies that posted disappointing results. Investors have been bullish on second-quarter results amid projections that earnings overall could jump 20% from the year-ago levels following the US tax reform. A decline in bank shares also pushed the markets down. Bank shares fell broadly as interest rates declined. J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley all declined by more than 1%. Besides, traders were also reacting to comments by President Donald Trump, who said that he is not thrilled with interest rate hikes by the Fed.
On the economic front, pointing to continuing solid growth in the US economy, the Conference Board released a report showing a bigger than expected increase by its index of leading economic indicators in the month of June. The Conference Board said its leading economic index climbed by 0.5% in June after revised data showed no change in May. Street had expected the index to rise by 0.4% compared to the 0.2% uptick originally reported for the previous month. Meanwhile, a report from the Labor Department showed that initial jobless claims unexpectedly dropped to their lowest level in almost five decades in the week ended July 14. The Labor Department said initial jobless claims fell to 207,000, a decrease of 8,000 from the previous week’s revised level of 215,000. Street had expected jobless claims to inch up to 220,000. With the unexpected decrease, jobless claims dropped to their lowest level since hitting 202,000 in December of 1969.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 134.79 points or 0.53 percent to 25064.50, the S&P 500 declined 11.13 points or 0.40 percent to 2804.49 and the Nasdaq was down by 29.15 points or 0.37 percent to 7825.30.
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