U.S. market indexes were mostly lower Thursday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 24,713.98 for a loss of -54.95 points or -0.22%. The S&P 500 closed at 2,720.13 for a loss of -2.33 points or -0.09%. The Nasdaq Composite closed at 7,382.47 for a loss of -15.82 points or -0.21%. The VIX Volatility Index was lower at 13.34 for a loss of -0.04 points or -0.60%.
Thursday’s market movers
The three main U.S. indexes were lower Thursday while the Russell 2000 continued its ascent. The Russell 2000 closed at a new high for a second consecutive day with small-cap stocks gaining. Across large-cap stocks, technology had a down day after Cisco (CSCO, Financial) reported some areas of weakness in its first-quarter earnings and closed with a -3.83% loss. The 10-year Treasury yield also reached 3.13%, which detracted from valuations in some of the large-cap market’s dividend stocks. Sectors leading losses included utilities, real estate and technology.
Economic reports affecting market trading included the following:
- Jobless claims increased by 11,000 to 222,000.
- E-commerce retail sales reported a seasonally adjusted annual growth rate of 3.9% for the first quarter.
- The Conference Board’s Leading Economic Indicators Index increased 0.4% for the month.
- Freddie Mac’s weekly mortgage market survey showed mortgage rates reaching their highest level in seven years. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage average increased to 4.61%. The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage average increased to 4.08%.
- Fed balance sheet assets were $4.358 trillion, an increase of $2.1 billion from the previous week’s report.
In the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the following stocks led losses:
- Cisco (CSCO, Financial) -3.83
- Walmart (WMT, Financial) -2.27%
- Johnson & Johnson (JNJ, Financial) -1.32%
- Merck (MRK, Financial) -1.18%
- McDonald's (MCD, Financial) -1.02%
- Microsoft (MSFT, Financial) -0.97%
Small-cap stocks
In small-caps, the Russell 2000 closed at 1,625.21 for a gain of 8.84 points or 0.55%. The S&P 600 closed at 1,001.02 for a gain of 6.93 points or 0.70%. The Dow Jones Small-Cap Growth TSM Index closed at 10,088.27 for a gain of 50.81 points or 0.51%. The Dow Jones Small-Cap Value TSM Index closed at 10,281.28 for a gain of 36.20 points or 0.35%.
Other notable indexes
Other notable index closes included the S&P 400 Mid-Cap Index at 1,948.29 for a gain of 4.48 points or 0.23%; the S&P 100 at 1,194.57 for a loss of -2.69 points or -0.22%; the Russell 3000 at 1,616.80 for a loss of -0.23 points or -0.01%; the Russell 1000 at 1,509.18 for a loss of -0.94 points or -0.06%; and the Dow Jones U.S. Select Dividend Index at 695.55 for a gain of 0.61 points or 0.09%.
