Thursday's Stock Market Open: US Equities Mixed Despite Huge Jobless Claims, Plunge In Housing Starts

Update: 12:05 p.m. EDT:

U.S. stocks were mixed at Thursday noon trading.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 48.75 points to 23,455.60, while the S&P 500 gained 15.51 points to 2,798.87 and the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 143.61 points to 8,536.79.

In Europe markets finished narrowly mixed, as Britain’s FTSE-100 gained 0.55%, France’s CAC-40 slipped 0.08% and Germany’s DAX rose 0.21%.

Update: 9:45 a.m. EDT:

U.S. stocks were mixed as the Dow tumbled.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 103.41 points to 23,400.94, while the S&P 500 gained 5.97 points to 2,789.33 and the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 69.7 points to 8,462.87.

Original story:

U.S. stocks opened mixed on Thursday although more than 5 million Americans filed for initial jobless claims and the housing market collapsed in March.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 77.25 points to 23,414.62, while the S&P 500 gained 16.96 points to 2,800.32 and the Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 80.77 points to 8,473.95.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that 5.245 million Americans filed first-time claims for unemployment insurance last week, bringing the total number to 22 million during the coronavirus crisis – thereby wiping out ten years of job creation growth since the Great Recession.

Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton, tweeted: “States that were late to shut down [are] now feeling the pain. Georgia had more than [256,000 jobless claim filings] and led the pack because it shut down later.”

U.S. housing starts plunged by 22.3% in March to 1.216 million – the worst monthly decline since March 1984.

The Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index in dropped in April to minus-56.6 after recording a minus-12.5 in March. The April figure was the lowest reading since July 1980.

Morgan Stanley (MS) posted first-quarter profit of $1.01 a share (versus analysts’ expectations of $1.14 per share) on revenues of $9.49 billion.

Marko Kolanovic, the global head of quantitative and derivatives strategy at JPMorgan, noted that deaths from the coronavirus pandemic may be peaking in the U.S., suggesting the economy may re-open sooner than previously thought.

“We think it’s gonna be possible to reopen it sooner. We think within a week from now, you will start seeing some limited moves,” he said.

“It’s going to be limited: I’m talking baby steps. But that tells us that by the summertime, we may more substantially recover. And sometime next year -- maybe the second half of next year -- the economy reaches the high watermark. Which means that the market could reach a high watermark in the first half of next year.”

Overnight in Asia, markets finished mixed. China’s Shanghai Composite edged up 0.31%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 0.58% and Japan’s Nikkei-225 fell 1.33%.

In Europe markets traded higher, as Britain’s FTSE-100 gained 0.51%, France’s CAC-40 was up 0.54% and Germany’s DAX rose 0.97%.

Crude oil futures gained 1.41% at $20.15 per barrel, Brent crude rose 1.95% at $28.23. Gold futures edged up 0.39%.

The euro fell 0.34% at $1.0876 while the pound sterling dropped 0.23% at $1.2492.