In mixed day, 2 indexes hit highs
U.S. stock indexes capped a day of choppy trading with a mixed finish Thursday, though solid gains by technology companies helped lift the Standard & Poor’s 500 and Nasdaq composite to more record highs.
The S&P 500 edged up less than 0.1%. Traders bid up shares in Big Tech stocks, including Apple, Amazon and Facebook. Those gains helped outweigh losses in energy, banking and other sectors.
Stocks of smaller companies, which have led the way higher this year, gave up some of their recent gains.
The S&P 500 rose 1.22 points to 3,853.07, even as more stocks in the index closed lower. The Dow Jones industrial average slipped in the final minutes of trading, shedding 12.37 points, or less than 0.1%, to 31,176.01.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite climbed 73.67 points, or 0.6%, to 13,530.91. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 19.20 points, or 0.9%, to 2,141.42.
Optimism about a strengthening economy later this year has been powerful enough to paper over worries about today’s struggles.
On Thursday, a report showed that 900,000 U.S. workers filed for unemployment benefits last week, as the worsening pandemic forces businesses to shut down and lay off employees. The number was less terrible than the prior week’s 926,000, but still very high.
Wall Street has actually seen such miserable numbers as a reason for optimism in the past, perversely, because they add to the urgency on Congress to deliver more aid for the economy.
Other reports on the economy Thursday were more encouraging, including better-than-expected data on the home-building industry and manufacturing in the Philadelphia region.
More companies are also telling investors how badly their profits got hit during the last three months of 2020, when COVID-19 case counts and deaths were soaring. Wall Street came into this earnings reporting season with low expectations. But most companies have been topping forecasts.
Travelers rose 2.6% after the insurer reported a much stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected.
Home builders rose after the encouraging report on housing starts, led by Beazer Homes USA’s 5.1% gain.
Paccar climbed 10.5% for the biggest gain in the S&P 500 after saying it will partner with autonomous-vehicle company Aurora to develop self-driving Peterbilt and Kenworth trucks.
On the losing end was United Airlines, which lost 5.7% after reporting a worse loss for the end of 2020 than analysts expected.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 1.10% from 1.07% late Wednesday.
The Federal Reserve has its first policy meeting of the year next week, and has said it doesn’t expect to pull interest rates off their record lows anytime soon.