US markets end lower on Thursday

13 Dec 2024 Evaluate

The US markets ended lower on Thursday after a report released by the Labor Department showed producer prices in the U.S. increased by more than expected in the month of November. The Labor Department said its producer price index for final demand climbed by 0.4 percent in November after rising by an upwardly revised 0.3 percent in October. Street had expected producer prices to inch up by 0.2 percent, matching the uptick originally reported for the previous month. The report also said the annual rate of producer price growth accelerated to 3.0 percent in November from an upwardly revised 2.6 percent in October. The annual rate of producer price growth was expected to rise to 2.6 percent from the 2.4 percent originally reported for the previous month. The bigger than expected monthly increase by producer prices was partly due to a surge by food prices, which spiked by 3.1 percent in November after coming in unchanged in October.

Further, weakness also prevailed in markets as first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits unexpectedly increased in the week ended December 7th, according to a report released by the Labor Department. The report said initial jobless claims climbed to 242,000, an increase of 17,000 from the previous week's revised level of 225,000. Street had expected jobless claims to dip to 220,000 from the 224,000 originally reported for the previous week. On the sectoral front, gold stocks pulled back sharply along with the price of the precious metal, with the NYSE Arca Gold Bugs Index plunging by 3.8 percent after ending Wednesday's session at its best closing level in over a month. Significant weakness was also visible among steel stocks, as reflected by the 2.7 percent slump by the NYSE Arca Steel Index.

Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 234.44 points or 0.53 percent to 43,914.12, Nasdaq dropped 132.05 points or 0.66 percent to 19,902.84 and S&P 500 was down by 32.94 points or 0.54 percent to 6,051.25.  


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