US open: Major indices head south as Dow Jones snaps winning streak

dl wall street wall st new york city new york stock exchange nyse dow jones nasdaq street sign nyc united states usa america pb — Sharecast / Alessandro D Andrea via Pixabay

US stocks were in the red at the opening bell on Thursday as investors digested this week's jobless claims data from the Labor Department and some key inflation data out of China.

As of 1525 GMT, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.32% at 34,002.22, while the S&P 500 was 0.16% weaker at 4,375.58 and the Nasdaq Composite came out the gate 0.04% softer at 13,645.29.

The Dow opened 110.05 points lower on Thursday, extending yesterday's losses that saw the blue chip snap its recent winning streak on the back of comments from Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell.

China was in focus early on Thursday, with the Asian superpower's consumer prices falling in October amid a somewhat uneven post-Covid recovery. Data from China's National Bureau of Statistics revealed that its consumer price index had slipped 0.2% year-on-year last month, more than the 0.1% decline predicted by economists. Producer prices fell 2.6%, slightly better than the decline of 2.7% that had been pencilled-in but still enough to mark a 13th consecutive monthly drop.

On the macro front, Americans filed unemployment claims at a decelerated pace on the week ended 4 November, broadly in line with market expectations. Initial unemployment claims dropped by to 214,000 last week, according to the Labor Department, down from the previous week's upwardly revised print of 217,000.

Continuing claims, on the other hand, rose by 22,000 to 1.83m in the week ended 28 October, above market expectations for a reading of 1.82m and the highest level seen since April. The four-week moving average, which aims to strip out week-to-week volatility, rose by 1,500 to 212,250, while non-seasonally adjusted claims rose by 13,826, with notable increases in California and New York.

Still to come, Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell will deliver another speech at 1900 GMT. The Federal Reserve will continue to draw an amount of investor attention on Thursday, with traders hopeful that central banks around the world are now gearing up to shift away from tightening and toward the timing of the 2024 easing process.

In the corporate space, Disney shares were in the green after the entertainment giant posted better-than-expected quarterly profits overnight, while ridesharing firm Lyft was in the red after it said quarterly bookings had come in worse than expected and that it didn't anticipate seeing them improve in the current period.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com

Dow Jones - Risers

Walt Disney Co. (DIS) $89.64 6.08%
Boeing Co. (BA) $195.79 2.06%
Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) $237.90 1.31%
Dow Chemical Co. (DOW) $48.57 0.56%
American Express Co. (AXP) $153.71 0.46%
3M Co. (MMM) $92.65 0.36%
Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) $35.89 0.34%
Chevron Corp. (CVX) $142.82 0.29%
Travelers Company Inc. (TRV) $169.03 0.28%
JP Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM) $145.08 0.25%