US close: Major indices put on mixed performance following PPI data

dl nyse new york stock exchange wall st street city finance dow jones nasdaq sp finance dollar dollars us usa united states of america 2 — New York Stock ExchangeSharecast photo / Josh White

Wall Street stocks put on a mixed performance on Thursday following the release of last month's producer price index.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.08% at 33,336.67, while the S&P 500 was 0.07% weaker at 4,207.27 and the Nasdaq Composite saw out the session 0.58% softer at 12,779.91.

The Dow closed 27.16 points higher on Thursday, narrowly extending gains recorded in the previous session.

Thursday's primary focus was July's PPI reading, which revealed a fall in energy prices led to wholesale inflation in the US registering its first outright fall since April 2020. According to the Department of Labor, so-called final demand prices retreated at a month-on-month pace of 0.5% (consensus: 0.3%). That pushed the annual rate of increase down from 11.3% in June to 9.8% for last month (consensus: 10.3%) - its slowest rate of gains since October.

Elsewhere on the macro front, Americans lined up for unemployment benefits at a slightly accelerated pace in the week ended 6 August, according to the Labor Department. Initial jobless claims rose by 14,000 week-on-week to 262,000, slightly better than expectations for a reading of 263,000, while the previous week's level was downwardly revised by 12,000 to 248,000.

In the corporate space, theme park operator Six Flags reported quarterly profits and revenues that fell well and truly short of expectations, while eyewear retailer Warby Parker posted a smaller-than-expected quarterly loss.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com

Dow Jones - Risers

Walt Disney Co. (DIS) $117.69 4.68%
Chevron Corp. (CVX) $159.62 2.44%
Travelers Company Inc. (TRV) $168.85 2.30%
Dow Chemical Co. (DOW) $55.26 2.26%
Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) $194.00 1.72%
JP Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM) $120.14 1.48%
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) $351.68 1.08%
Nike Inc. (NKE) $114.10 0.85%
International Business Machines Corporation (CDI) (IBM) $132.54 0.79%
Intel Corp. (INTC) $35.59 0.62%