US open: Markets relinquish Fed-fueled gains as Apple makes Dow debut

US markets moved slightly lower on Thursday, as stocks relinquished some of the gains generated by the Federal Reserve’s announcement on Wednesday.

Just after 10:00 in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 99 points down, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq shed six and 0.05 points respectively.

The central bank's Federal Open Market Committee slashed its forecasts for the main policy rate, gross domestic product, inflation and unemployment over the coming three years.

The move to reduce the latter was considered to be especially significant by some observers, who interpreted as a reduction in the Fed’s estimate of the so-called Non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU).

The tone of the latest economic data, released before the start of trading, was slightly negative.

Meanwhile, the US current account deficit widened in the fourth quarter of 2014 to reach $113.5bn, well above the downwardly revised reading of $98.9bn for the previous three months.

In the week ended 19 March, weekly unemployment claims rose by 2,000 to reach 291,000, according to the Department of Labor.

That was slightly lower than the 293,000 forecast by economists.

“As things stand, we would anticipate another sizeable gain in payroll employment in March which, despite the weakness of current inflation, is why we expect the Fed to begin raising interest rates in June,” said Paul Ashworth, chief US economist at Capital Economics.

In company news, GoDaddy, the website hosting company, was planning to issue 22m shares at between $17 to $19 each, regulatory filings showed. That would allow the outfit to fetch a market capitalisation of between $2.57bn and $2.87bn.

Apple rose 0.3% on its debut as a Dow Jones component.

While home builder Lennar Corp climbed 1.65% after reporting better-than-expected earnings and revenue.

Biotech group Amicus Therapeutics jumped almost 27% after reporting that a meeting with regulators over a treatment for Fabry disease had been successful.

Having rebounded strongly in the wake of the Fed’s announcement on Wednesday, oil prices tumbled again, with West Texas Intermediate crude losing 3.98% to $42.95 a barrel, while Brent crude lost 2.92% to $54.32 a barrel.

Gold futures gained 1.02% to $1,163.00, while the dollar recouped some of its Fed-fuelled losses.

The greenback hit a new eight-day low against the euro on Wednesday night, but rebounded strongly on Thursday gaining 1.7% against the European currency and 0.84% and 0.62% against the pound and the yen respectively.