Wall Street broke June's rally during Thursday's rocky session, ending trading flat as the Labor Department's weekly jobless claims report came slightly above expectations. The session wasn't all losses though, for the Nasdaq 100 reached a new intraday all time high before being pulled down by major tech stocks like Facebook (NASDAQ: FB), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) paring some of their coronavirus pandemic gains.
Filings for unemployment insurance claims totaled 1.877 million last week, totaling lower than 2 million for the first time since March 14, but still too high to signal recovery. Thursday's report also upwardly revised the prior week's unemployment reading to 2.126 million, along with continuing jobless claims settling at 21.5 million. With more than 42.6 million Americans filing for unemployment benefits since the coronavirus pandemic related shutdowns, May's unemployment rate is now feared to have risen to about 20%.
Here's how the market settled on Thursday:
S&P 500 Index (NYSE: SPY): -0.34% or -10.52 points to 3,112.35
Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSE: DIA): +0.05% or +11.93 points to 26,281. 82
Nasdaq Composite Index (NASDAQ: QQQ): -0.69% or -67.10 points to 9,615.81
In Major Stock News, ZoomInfo Technologies (NASDAQ: ZI) opened at $40 per share, nearly double its initial public offering, in its trading debut. American Airlines (NASDAQ: AAL) rallied on Thursday, joined by Delta (NYSE: DAL), Southwest (NYSE: LUV) and United Airlines (NASDAQ: UAL). Shares of Caesars Entertainment (NASDAQ: CZR), MGM Resorts (NYSE: MGM) and Wynn Resorts (NASDAQ: WYNN) all climbed higher as Las Vegas reopened casinos on Thursday. Simon Property Group (NYSE: SPG) sued retailer Gap (NYSE: GPS) over nearly $66 million in unpaid rent, according to The Real Deal. Tesla (NASDAQ: TLSA) CEO Elon Musk tweeted (NYSE: TWTR) on Thursday: "Time to break up Amazon. Monopolies are wrong!"
In Stock Sector News, sectors mostly lost the leads they has gained during Wednesday's session. Only Financials +1.97%, Industrials +1.05% and Materials +0.35% ended Thursday's session with gains. For the rest, the negative performance moves were as follows: Utilities -1.95%, Real Estate -1.80%, Information Technology -0.84%, Health Care -0.81%, Communication Services -0.81%, Consumer Staples -0.59%, Consumer Discretionary -0.55% and Energy -0.15%.
In Commodity and Currency News, crude futures for July continue to steadily climb from their historic drop in April. West Texas Intermediate (NYSE: USO) closed at a new three-month high of $37.41. International benchmark Brent Crude (NYSE: BNO) also climbed higher on Thursday, settling just below $40 per barrel. Gold (NYSE: GLD) futures bounced back from Wednesday's decline, gaining over 1% to price at $1,723.40 per ounce. Finally, the U.S. Dollar (NYSE: UUP) continued to decline in value, with the DXY Index dropping about -0.5%.
As the market heads into its final day of trading this week, investors will focus on nonfarm payrolls for May as well as more U.S-China relations headlines.