The US markets ended in red on Thursday due to concerns about the impact of the artificial intelligence (AI) buildout on industries other than the tech sector. Investors looked ahead to Friday’s inflation reading for clues on rate-cut bets, which were already dampened by a strong January jobs report. Traders remained cautious as the National Association of Realtors (NAR) released a report showing that after a sharp increase in U.S. existing home sales in the previous month, existing home sales pulled back by much more than expected in the month of January. NAR said existing home sales plunged by 8.4 percent to an annual rate of 3.91 million in January after surging by 4.4 percent to a downwardly revised rate of 4.27 million in December. Traders took a note of the Labor Department released a report showing that a modest decrease in first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits in the week ended February 7th. The report said initial jobless claims dipped to 227,000, a decrease of 5,000 from the previous week's revised level of 232,000.
Sector wise, Gold stocks also saw substantial weakness amid a steep drop by the price of the precious metal, dragging the NYSE Arca Gold Bugs Index down by 6.9 percent. Significant weakness was also visible among transportation stocks due to the AI concerns, with the Dow Jones Transportation Index plunging by 4.0 percent.
Nasdaq decreased 469.31 points or 2.04 percent to 22,597.14, S&P 500 fell 108.71 points or 1.57 percent to 6,832.76 and Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 669.42 points or 1.34 percent to 49,451.98.
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