Dow Falls 150 Points; US Jobless Claims Decline Last Week

U.S. stocks traded lower this morning, with the Dow Jones dropping more than 150 points on Thursday.

Following the market opening Thursday, the Dow traded down 0.50% to 31,713.71 while the NASDAQ fell 0.18% to 11,412.93. The S&P 500, also fell, dropping, 0.33% to 3,879.20.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

• Communication services shares rose by 0.1% on Thursday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included iHuman Inc. IH, up 3%, and CarGurus, Inc. CARG, up 1%.
• In trading on Thursday, energy shares tumbled by 1.4%.

Top Headline

US initial jobless claims dropped by 20,000 from the prior week to 192,000 in the week ending March 11, compared to market expectations of 205,000.

Equities Trading UP

• PureCycle Technologies, Inc. PCT shares shot up 33% to $6.36 after the company provided a Q4 2022 update.
• Shares of UiPath Inc. PATH got a boost, shooting 19% to $17.45 after the company reported better-than-expected Q4 results and issued strong revenue guidance.
• CXApp Holding Corp. CXAI shares were also up, gaining 15% to $4.70.

Equities Trading DOWN

• Esperion Therapeutics, Inc. ESPR shares tumbled 65% to $1.3900 after the company reported a disagreement with one of its partners over certain milestone payments.
• Shares of LivePerson, Inc. LPSN were down 57% to $4.23 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q4 sales results and issued Q1 and FY23 revenue guidance below estimates.
• Proterra Inc. PTRA was down, falling 43% to $1.4406 after the company reported worse-than-expected Q4 results and issued FY23 revenue guidance below estimates.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded down 0.7% to $67.14 while gold traded up 0.2% at $1,934.60.

Silver traded up 0.5% to $21.99 on Thursday while copper rose 0.4% to $3.8585.

Euro zone

European shares were mixed today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 slipped 0.1%, London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.3% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index rose 0.4%. The German DAX gained 0.2% French CAC 40 gained 0.6% and Italy’s FTSE MIB Index declined 0.1%.

The European Central Bank announced a half-percentage-point rate hike at its recent meeting. Spain's trade deficit shrank to EUR 3.96 billion in January from EUR 6.52 billion in the year-ago month. The annual inflation rate in Italy fell to 9.1% in February versus an initial reading of 9.2%.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed mostly lower on Thursday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropping 0.80%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dropping 1.72% and China’s Shanghai Composite Index declining 1.12%. India’s S&P BSE Sensex rose 0.2%.

Industrial production in Japan fell 5.3% month-over-month in January, while core machinery orders in the country climbed 9.5% month-over-month in January. Japanese trade deficit widened to JPY 897.7 billion in February from JPY 711.5 billion in the year-ago month.

Hong Kong’s unemployment rate fell to 3.3% during the three months ending Feb. 2023. Average new home prices in China fell by 1.2% year-over-year in February. Australian unemployment rate dropped to 3.5% in February.

Economics

• US initial jobless claims dropped by 20,000 from the prior week to 192,000 in the week ending March 11, compared to market expectations of 205,000.
• The Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index rose 1 point to a reading of -23.2 in March.
• US export prices climbed by 0.2% from a month ago in February, while import prices declined 0.1%.
• Housing starts in the US rose 9.8% from a month ago to an annualized rate of 1.45 million in February, while building permits jumped 13.8% to an annual rate of 1.524 million.

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COVID-19 Update

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 105,735,650 cases with around 1,150,130 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,692,710 cases and 530,790 deaths, while France reported over 39,675,450 COVID-19 cases with 165,260 deaths. In total, there were at least 682,048,540 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,815,400 deaths.