Wall Street led a pretty negative session on Thursday, with only the Nasdaq closing higher. Investment sentiment was tarnished by record coronavirus-related hospitalizations in hard-hit states like California and Florida, dimming hopes towards a speedy economic recovery as fears of renewed lockdowns resurfaced. The Dow and S&P 500 lost all of their weekly gains, with the Dow being weighed down from lackluster quarterly earnings from Walgreens Boots Alliance
The Labor Department's new weekly unemployment claims saw improvement for the week ended July 4, totaling a lesser-than-expected 1.314 million. The prior week's new jobless claims were downwardly revised at 1.413 million. Continuing unemployment claims fell to a better-than-expected 18.062 million for the week ended June 27, decreasing from the previous week's downwardly revised level of 18.76 million.
Here's how the market settled on Thursday:
S&P 500 Index
Dow Jones Industrial Average
Nasdaq Composite Index
For Major Stock News, Airline stocks were pressured following more bad recovery and demand news from Delta Air Lines
For Stock Sectors, most industries continued to sink on Thursday. The only sectors that gained on Thursday were Consumer Discretionary +0.77% and Information Technology +0.38%. The majority of sectors that declined in performance were as follows: Energy -4.86%, Financials -2.15%, Industrials -2.14%, Utilities -1.31%, Materials -0.93%, Health Care -0.82%, Consumer Staples -0.75%, Real Estate -0.34% and Communication Services -0.04%.
For Commodities and Currency, oil futures settled lower on Thursday, as concerns about future demand pressured any recovery gains. West Texas Intermediate
As the market moves into its final trading day of the week, investors will focus on data for U.S. producers purchasing index as well as coronavirus news.