The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 30,924.14 on Thursday with a loss of 345.95 points or -1.11%. The S&P 500 closed at 3,768.47 for a loss of 51.25 points or -1.34%. The Nasdaq Composite closed at 12,723.47 for a loss of 274.28 points or -2.11%. The VIX Volatility Index was higher at 28.57 for a gain of 1.90 points or 7.12%.
Thursday's Market Movers
U.S. stocks sold off for a third day in a row with the major indexes all ending lower on Thursday. Energy was the only major sector with a gain after OPEC+ announced minor production changes and oil prices gained.
Treasury yields and mortgage rates were higher. The 30-year Treasury bond ended the day at a yield of 2.334% after closing at around 2.220% Wednesday. The 10-year Treasury yield increased to 1.577% from 1.465%. Freddie Mac released its weekly mortgage market survey. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 3.02%, up from 2.97%. The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage average was unchanged at 2.34%.
Federal Reserve Chairman Powell made headlines in a discussion with Wall Street Journal Chief Economics Correspondent Nick Timiraos at the Wall Street Journal Jobs Summit. Topics included the labor market, interest rates and bond yields. Powell stayed with his current dovish positioning, suggesting plans for keeping policy and current rate levels unchanged for the remainder of the year.
In other news:
- 745,000 Americans filed for jobless claims, up from 736,000. Continuing jobless claims were 4.295 million, down from 4.419 million.
- The U.S. announced it will halt tariffs on U.K. goods for discussion on subsidies paid to Boeing (BA) and Airbus (XPAR:AIR).
- VanEck launched the VanEck Vectors Social Sentiment ETF (BUZZ, Financial) which will seek to track the BUZZ NextGen Artificial Intelligence U.S. Sentiment Leaders Index. The product includes stocks with high social media attention, excluding cases such as GameStop (GME, Financial) where large numbers of retail investors are gaming the market.
- The Commerce Department released the Productivity and Costs report. Nonfarm productivity decreased -4.2% in the fourth quarter of 2020. Unit labor costs increased 6% in the fourth quarter of 2020.
- Factory orders increased 2.6% in January following an increase of 1.6%. Factory orders excluding transportation increased 1.7% in January following an increase of 1.9%.
- The Treasury held auctions for 4-week bills at a rate of 0.030% and 8-week bills at a rate of 0.035%.
Across the board:
- Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLE, Financial) gained 2.39%
- Burlington Stores (BURL, Financial) gained 11.19%
- Vroom (VRM, Financial) was down -28.00%
- PayPal (PYPL, Financial) was down -6.27%
- Exxon (XOM, Financial) gained 3.87%
- Tesla (TSLA, Financial) was down -4.86%
- General Motors (GM, Financial) was down -1.59%.
- Costco (COST, Financial) reported earnings and the stock fell -1.51%. Revenue of $44.77 billion increased 14.6% year over year and beat estimates by $1.06 billion. Q2 GAAP EPS of $2.14 missed estimates by $0.30 and non-GAAP EPS of $2.55 beat estimates by $0.12.
Small-Cap Stocks
In small-caps, the Russell 2000 closed at 2,146.92 for a loss of 60.87 points or -2.76%. The S&P 600 closed at 1,272.27 for a loss of 25.20 points or -1.94%. The Dow Jones U.S. Small-Cap Growth Index closed at 14,221.43 for a loss of 507.10 points or -3.44%. The Dow Jones U.S. Small-Cap Value Index closed at 10,427.10 for a loss of 140.84 points or -1.33%.
Other Notable Indexes
Other notable index closes included the S&P 400 Mid-Cap Index at 2,453.30 for a loss of 54.54 points or -2.17%; the S&P 100 at 1,713.77 for a loss of 19.82 points or -1.14%; the Nasdaq 100 at 12,464.00 for a loss of 219.33 points or -1.73%; the Russell 3000 at 2,268.02 for a loss of 36.67 points or -1.59%; the Russell 1000 at 2,127.84 for a loss of 32.46 points or -1.50%; the Wilshire 5000 at 39,600.36 for a loss of 626.73 points or -1.56%; and the Dow Jones US Select Dividend Index at 764.64 for a loss of 7.26 points or -0.94%.
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