Another afternoon fade for stocks on Thursday, after the S&P 500 briefly hit its all-time closing high for the second straight day, left Wall Street just short of a milestone.
The S&P 500 dropped 6.92 points to 3,373.43, or 0.2 percent. It’s climbed above 3,386.15 at one stage during the day. This is the high closing point it set in February.
It was before investors knew how much damage the latest coronavirus would cause for the global economy.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 80.12, or 0.3%, to 27,896.72. The Nasdaq composite climbed 30.27, or 0.3%, to 11,042.50.
There Was the Second Loss in the Last 10 Days
It’s just the second loss for the S&P 500 in the last 10 days. The index began stumbling in the early afternoon, as Treasury yields were accelerating following an auction of 30-year bonds by the U.S. government. Higher yields mean prices for bonds were falling.
“We saw a sell-off in bonds. And then, that led to a little bit of weakness in stocks,” said JJ Kinahan, chief strategist at TD Ameritrade.
“It’s not a terrible day by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s also a summer day,” which are traditionally slow for markets.
Yields had already perked up before the sale, after a survey showing that last week, 963,000 U.S. employees applied for unemployment insurance.
It’s an extremely high number of layoffs but it’s also the first time since March that the count has fallen below 1 million before widespread company lockdowns sparked a wave of layoffs.
Economists have said the decline in jobless claims is a positive move and was better than the market predicted. But they also cautioned it may be more of an outward than a phenomenon. In addition, to validate it, further data reports are required.
The 10-year Treasury yield has risen to 0.71 percent. Also on Monday, it was at 0.57 percent.
In Asian stock markets, Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 jumped 1.8%, South Korea’s Kospi gained 0.2% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slipped 0.1%. Stocks in Shanghai were virtually flat.
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