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By ALEX VEIGA, Associated Press Business Writer
Stocks on Wall Street were down slightly in early trading Thursday, following new economic data and a mixed batch of earnings reports from big U.S. companies.
The S&P 500 slipped 0.1% a day after climbing to a new high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 52 points, or 0.1%, as of 10:02 a.m. Eastern time. The Nasdaq composite was down less than 0.1%.
Hormel fell 4.7% for the biggest drop among S&P 500 companies after reporting earnings that Spam maker fell short of Wall Street’s forecasts and cut its outlook for the year.
Victoria’s Secret & Co. surged 9.7% after the retail chain’s second-quarter results topped analysts’ estimates.
Gains in technology companies helped temper declines in health care and other sectors. Broadcom rose 2.7% and Advanced Micro Devices was 1.9%.
Tech giant Nvidia was down 1% a day after reporting quarterly earnings and revenue that beat Wall Street analysts’ forecasts, though the company noted that sales of its artificial intelligence chipsets rose at a slower pace than analysts anticipated.
Investors consider Nvidia a barometer for the strength of the boom in artificial intelligence because the company makes most of the chips that power the technology. Its heavy weighting also gives Nvidia outsized influence as a bellwether for the broader market.
Treasury yields were mostly higher in the bond market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury slipped to 4.23% from 4.24% late Wednesday.
European and Asian markets were mixed.
Traders also had their eye on new government reports on the job market and economy.
The Labor Department reported that applications for unemployment benefits fell last week, the latest sign that employers are holding onto their workers even as the economy has slowed.
The most recent government data suggests hiring has slowed sharply since this spring.
Meanwhile, the Commerce Department reported that U.S. gross domestic product —- the nation’s output of goods and services — grew at a 3.3% annual pace in the April-June quarter after shrinking 0.5% in the first three months of this year due to the fallout from the Trump administration’s trade wars.
The sluggishness in the job market is a key reason that Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell signaled last week that the central bank may cut its key interest rate at its meeting next month.
Lower rates can boost investment prices and the economy by making it cheaper for U.S. households and businesses to borrow, but they risk worsening inflation.
Traders are still betting the Fed will trim its benchmark interest rate at its next meeting in September. Traders see an 85.3% chance that the central bank will cut the rate by a quarter of a percentage point, according to data from CME Group.
The two-year Treasury yield, which more closely tracks expectations for Federal Reserve action, rose to 3.64% from 3.62%.
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