US open: Stocks little changed as Dow drifts from 20,000
US stocks were little changed on Thursday as a slew of data was released, while the Dow’s advance to the 20,000 mark loses speed.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.11% to 19,855.64, the S&P 500 rose 0.1% to 2,252.11 and the Nasdaq was flat at 0.05% to 5,441.42 at 1247 GMT,
Meanwhile, oil prices were up after data released by the American Petroleum Institute on Wednesday showed US crude stocks increased by 4.2m barrels in the week to 23 December, versus expectations of a 2.1m barrel drop.
Brent crude rose 0.37% to $56.43 a barrel, and West Texas Intermediate increased 0.18% to $53.96 at 1434 GMT.
Gold on Comex added 0.53% to 1,146.90 per troy ounce.
The dollar was down 0.06% versus sterling to 0.8174, fell 0.42% against the euro to 0.9564, and shaved off 0.47% versus the yen to 116.71.
Mike van Dulken, head of research at Accendo Markets, said: “Equities are on the back foot today, for this last full trading session of the year. Sentiment is weighed on by US markets and the US dollar having retreated from their highs yesterday, investors taking profits and some risk off the table.”
Elsewhere, Europe’s banks were in the spotlight again with the continent’s main indices a touch lower.
Italy’s economy minister, Pier Carlo Padoan said Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena’s recapitalisation will start in two to three months and that the plan to compensate retail investors has been agreed.
Credit Suisse was down 1.38% following reports that US authorities are investigating the sale of a bond to Mozambique that was used to buy military equipment instead of tuna fishing. BNP Paribas fell 1.34% as it is also being investigated for the bond sale.
On the data front, initial jobless claims, US initial jobless claims declined by 10,000 last week from the unrevised level to 265,000 the previous week. Economists had been expecting a drop to 264,000.
This marked the 95th consecutive week of initial claims below 300,000 – the longest streak since 1970.
The four-week moving average was 263,000, down 750 from the previous week’s unrevised average.
Wholesale inventories rose to a seasonally adjusted 0.9% to $594.5bn last quarter from -0.1%, the previous quarter, which was revised up from -0.4%. The forecast consensus was an increase to 0.2%.
On the negative side the trade deficit increased 5.5% in November to $65.3bn, compared to $62bn in October. Analysts had expected $61.5bn.
In other corporate news, Cempra tanked 52.87% after the US Food and Drug Association said that it could not approve the pharmaceutical's pneumonia drug.
Whereas Fortress Biotech rocketed 27.07% after it said late on Wednesday that it had made a breakthrough with a cancer treatment that has suffered recently.
Endologix climbed 3.75% after the company said it removed a temporary hold on shipments for some of its medical devices.
CBS Corp gained 0.14% after Burke Ramsey, the older brother of murdered child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey, filed a $750m defamation lawsuit against the company over a documentary aired by the network suggesting he killed his sister.