Stocks fell lower on Thursday as traders wrapped up a choppy first quarter for Wall Street. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped over 500 points, while the S&P 500 Index and Nasdaq Composite were both about 1.5% lower.
Thursday marks the last trading day of March and the first quarter. Stocks were higher for the month, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq finished up about 5% each and the Dow was up nearly 4%. However, for the quarter, the Dow and S&P were down about 3% and the Nasdaq is off by more than 7%.
Here's how the market settled on Thursday:
S&P 500 Index
Dow Jones Industrial Average
Nasdaq Composite Index
White House taps Strategic Petroleum Reserve to cut gas prices:
The White House on Thursday announced that the United States will release 1 million barrels of oil per day from the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve for the next six month to help cut gas prices and combat rising inflation.
"The scale of this release is unprecedented: the world has never had a release of oil reserves at this 1 million per day rate for this length of time," the White House said in a release. "This record release will provide a historic amount of supply to serve as bridge until the end of the year when domestic production ramps up."
Consumer spending fell in February:
U.S. inflation-adjusted consumer spending fell in February, indicating that rising prices are impacting demand.
The Commerce Department reported Thursday that purchases of goods and services, adjusted for inflation, fell 0.4% from the previous month after jumping to 2.1% in January.
The firm's personal consumption expenditures price index--which is the Fed's preferred gauge for its inflation target--rose 0.6% from a month earlier and 6.4% from February 2021, marking the biggest increase since 1982. Spending rose 0.2% from January, while incomes rose 0.5%, unadjusted for inflation.
Jobless claims tick slightly higher last week:
Initial jobless claims rose slightly after reaching a more than 50-year low last week. New unemployment filings totaled 202,000 for the week ended March 26, according to the Labor Department's latest reading published Thursday, above the 196,000 expected by consensus economists and the previous week's revised total of 188,000.
However, continuing jobless claims ticked down for the week ended March 19, totaling 1.307 million, below the 1.340 million expected and the prior week's revised print of 1.342 million.
Here's how benchmarks started trading after market open:
S&P 500 Index: -0.15% or -6.82 points to 4,595.63
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -0.28% or -98.72 points to 35,130.09
Nasdaq Composite Index: +0.00% or +0.03 points to 14,442.31
