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Investing.com — U.S. stock markets opened mixed on Thursday, unable to add much to Wednesday’s gains that left them at a record high for the third straight day, despite the tailwinds of a relaxed Federal Reserve and a strengthening labor market.
By 9:45 AM ET (1345 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 52 points, or 0.2% at 36,104 points. The S&P 500 was up a little less than 0.1% and the Nasdaq Composite was up 0.2%.
Earlier, the Labor Department had said that initial jobless claims fell to a new post-pandemic low at 269,000 last week. They’re now running at a level that would have been exceptionally low at pretty much any time in recent history except for the presidency of Donald Trump. Other data also signaled no end to strong domestic demand ahead of the holiday season, with imports rising to a new record high of $288.5 billion in September.
The jobless claims data, along with Wednesday’s strong ADP private nonfarm payrolls report, suggest that official employment data on Friday will show a clear re-acceleration in October, after falling to their lowest level in eight months in September. Analysts expect nonfarm jobs to have grown by 450,000 through the middle of last month.
Of more concern were other data, which showed unit labor costs rising 8.3% in the third quarter and productivity falling by 5.0%. Those point to a hardening of inflationary pressures that may yet cause the Federal Reserve to tighten monetary policy faster than it currently wants to.
Among individual movers, Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) stock caught the eye with a 12% gain after reporting record fiscal fourth-quarter sales that underlined its pricing power with key customer segments, such as smartphone makers and the automotive sector.
