Wall Street carried Wednesday's rally until the end of Thursday's session as President Donald Trump stated that he will be holding a news conference on Friday regarding the United States's relationship with China. Trump earlier in the day had tweeted another attack against China for the coronavirus pandemic, stating, "All over the World the CoronaVirus, a very bad "gift" from China, marches on. Not good!" The two world powers have continued to increase tensions over the coronavirus and Hong Kong.
Prior to the decrease in market sentiment, stocks had traded higher on hopes that the economic damage brought by the coronavirus pandemic may be bottoming.
The Labor Department's weekly jobless claims for the week ended May 23 totaled 2.123 million, which was slightly higher than consensus estimates but lower than weekly totals since the beginning of the pandemic. Continuing jobless claims also started to fall for the week ended May 16, lowering from the prior week's 24.912 million to a total of 21.052 million.
Here's how the market settled on Thursday:
S&P 500 Index
Dow Jones Industrial Average
Nasdaq Composite Index
In Major Stock News, Dollar Tree
In Stock Sector News, sectors ended Thursday's session mixed as U.S.-China tensions continue to pressure investors. The half that settled with performance gains were Utilities +3.04%, Health Care +1.26%, Real Estate +1.24%, Materials +0.83% and Consumer Staples +0.75%. The rest that dropped in performance were Energy -2.91%, Financials -1.56%, Consumer Discretionary -1.05%, Industrials -0.98%, Communication Services -0.95% and Information Technology -0.19%.
In Commodity and Currency News, West Texas Intermediate
For Friday, market participants will focus their attention towards the trade relationship between U.S.-China. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to also slated to deliver remarks on Friday.