FILE PHOTO: The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is seen in the financial district of lower Manhattan during the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in New York City, U.S., April 26, 2020. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon
April 30, 2020
By C Nivedita and Shreyashi Sanyal
(Reuters) – Wall Street’s main indexes fell on Thursday after a strong month of gains as millions of more Americans applied for jobless claims, taking the shine off a strong rally this month and eclipsing upbeat results from Facebook and Tesla.
All 11 S&P 500 sector indexes were trading lower, with financials <.SPSY>, materials <.SPLRCM> and utilities <.SPLRCU> leading declines.
Dramatic U.S. stimulus and hopes of a revival in business activity as states reopen from lockdowns have powered a Wall Street rally in April, putting the S&P 500 <.SPX> and Dow Jones index <.DJI> on course for their best months since 1987.
But investors remain cautious of the pace of the recovery from a looming recession, with economic indicators underlining the extent of the damage already done.
The Labor Department’s report showed initial jobless claims totaled 3.84 million for the week ended April 25, a day after data confirmed the biggest contraction for the U.S. economy in the first quarter since the Great Recession.
“The jobless claims figure is a kind of feedback from some of the policy that we’ve undertaken as a country to fight (the crisis), but hopefully a lot of these jobless folk will come back into the workforce,” said Matt Stucky, portfolio manager at Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
“The timing of when that happens is going to be a function of the road to recovery from the coronavirus.”
The U.S. Federal Reserve widened a key program to nurse the “Main Street” economy, agreeing to lend to even larger firms, taking on more risk in participation with banks.
Investors will now focus on earnings reports from Apple <AAPL.O> and Amazon.com <AMZN.O> after markets close.
Facebook Inc <FB.O> jumped 5% after the social media giant posted better-than-expected quarterly revenue.
Market-leading growth stocks such as, Facebook, Apple, Amazon.com, Netflix <NFLX.O> and Alphabet <GOOGL.O>, the so-called FAANG group, have gained between 12% and 25% this month.
“The stock market has largely been driven by a lot of these disruptive tech-names in past years, so many investors are looking to these names to come and lead us out of the downtown,” said Chris Andrews, co-founder and co-portfolio manager at SilverCross Investment Management in Amsterdam.
At 12:56 p.m. ET the Dow Jones Industrial Average <.DJI> was down 349.46 points, or 1.42%, at 24,284.40, the S&P 500 <.SPX> was down 35.64 points, or 1.21%, at 2,903.87 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> was down 59.22 points, or 0.66%, at 8,855.49.
Electric-car maker Tesla Inc <TSLA.O> gained 2% after posting its third straight quarterly profit, taking investors by surprise as its automaker peers were hit by a slump in consumer demand and factory shutdowns.
McDonald’s Corp <MCD.N> shed 2% after it reported a 16.7% slide in quarterly profit as most of its restaurants across the globe limited their services to deliveries and take-aways.
American Airlines <AAL.O> fell 3.7% as the airline operator posted its first quarterly loss since emerging from bankruptcy in 2013 and warned of a $70 million a day cash burn.
Declining issues outnumbered advancers for a 3.17-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and nearly the same on the Nasdaq.
The S&P index recorded two new 52-week highs and no new low, while the Nasdaq recorded 18 new highs and two new lows.
(Reporting by C Nivedita and Shreyashi Sanyal in Bengaluru; Editing by Sagarika Jaisinghani, Anil D’Silva and Arun Koyyur)
