US close: Stocks lower as traders digest multiple data points

dl exchange place wall st street pl new york city nyc ny nyse stock exchange dow jones sp nasdaq finance dollar dollars us usa united states of america — Exchange PlaceSharecast photo / Josh White

Wall Street stocks closed lower on Thursday as fears over tighter monetary policy remained in focus and investors digested a number of key data points.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.47% at 36,236.47, while the S&P 500 was 0.10% weaker at 4,696.05 and the Nasdaq Composite saw out the session 0.13% softer at 15,080.86.

The Dow closed 170.64 points lower on Thursday, extending losses recorded in the previous session after minutes from the latest Federal Reserve Bank meeting revealed a more hawkish tone than previously communicated, with some officials looking to raise interest rates faster and trim its $8.8trn balance sheet to combat spiralling costs of living.

In the corporate space, Walgreens-Boots Alliance lifted forecasts but warned of rising labour costs as a result of efforts to keep up with Covid vaccines and tests and Bed Bath & Beyond said supply chain issues had led to its third-quarter results falling shy of expectations.

On the macro front, first-time claims for unemployment benefits came in at 207,000 in the week ended 1 January, according to the Labor Department, up from 200,000 in the previous week and above the 195,000 forecast by economists.

Continuing claims, which run a week behind the headline number, also increased, rising by 36,000 to 1.75m, while the four-week moving average, which accounts for weekly volatility in the numbers, grew to 204,500.

Also on jobs, Challenger, Gray & Christmas' December jobs cuts report revealed that US employers had announced plans to cut 19.052 jobs last month, roughly 75% lower than the figure reported at the same time a year earlier. For the whole of 2021, employers announced plans to cut 321,970 jobs from their payrolls - the lowest annual total on record since tracking began in 1993.

Elsewhere, November's trade balance came to a print of -$80.17bn - larger than the $77.1bn expected on the Street, just shy of the September deficit of -$81.44bn, with exports up 0.2% and imports rising 4.6%.

Still on data, the Institute for Supply Management's non-manufacturing PMI printed at 62.0 in December, falling short of estimates for a reading of 66.9.

Lastly, factory orders increased strongly in November, according to the Commerce Department, rising 1.6%, while data for October was revised higher to show orders rising 1.2% instead of 1.0% as previously reported.

Dow Jones - Risers

Travelers Company Inc. (TRV) $162.33 1.60%
Walt Disney Co. (DIS) $156.90 1.09%
JP Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM) $165.52 1.06%
Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) $60.92 1.06%
Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) $221.99 1.02%
McDonald's Corp. (MCD) $269.69 0.94%
Chevron Corp. (CVX) $123.26 0.83%
American Express Co. (AXP) $172.90 0.66%
Salesforce.Com Inc. (CRM) $229.15 0.65%
Intel Corp. (INTC) $54.01 0.26%