The S&P 500 edged higher to close out Thursday's session in the green as the broader market traded mixed amid concerns that the Federal Reserve will start tightening its stimulus efforts by the end of the year.
Minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee's July policy meeting released Wednesday showed that several policymakers backed tapering the central bank's $120 billion in monthly bond-purchases before the year-end.
Here's how the market settled on Thursday:
S&P 500 Index
Dow Jones Industrial Average
Nasdaq Composite Index
Amazon reportedly is looking to open department stores:
Amazon
The WSJ reported that some of the first Amazon department stores are expected to be in California and Ohio, with locations planned to take up roughly 30,000 square feet. At that size, the department stores will be similar to the size of a Kohl's
FTC file new antitrust complaint against Facebook in U.S. federal court:
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has filed a new antitrust complaint against Facebook
The FT had alleged in a previous complaint that Facebook has maintained an illegal monopoly, but that claimant was dismissed in June by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, with the agency given a second chance to file claims before the court against Facebook.
As with the previous complaint, the FTC claims that Facebook's acquisitions of other social media platforms including Instagram and WhatsApp exhibit anticompetitive practices.
Facebook has until Oct. 4 to respond to the FTC's amended complaint.
Here's how benchmarks started trading soon after market open:
S&P 500 Index: -0.63% or -27.82 points to 4,372.45
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -0.66% or -230.47 points to 34,730.22
Nasdaq Composite Index: -0.66% or -87.50 points to 14,435.17
Jobless claims fall to fresh pandemic-era low:
Weekly new unemployment claims fell to a new pandemic-era low last week as the labor market improved at a more-than-expected rate, demonstrating the market's overall choppy recovery since its plunge in March 2020.
New jobless filings totaled 348,000 for the week ended August 14, according to the Labor Department's latest report published Thursday. This dropped from the prior week's total of 377,000 claims and beat the previous pandemic-era low of 368,000 claims. Continuing unemployment claims also reached a new pandemic-era low, with claims totaling 2.82 million for the week ended August 7.
Moreover, the total number of claims across all unemployment programs also fell lower, signalling that more individuals are moving off of both state and federal enhanced unemployment benefits as the U.S. economy continues its pandemic recovery. About 11.7 million Americans were claiming unemployment benefits across all programs for the week ended July 13, falling by about 312,000 claims from the previous week.
