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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Investors cautious on virus rise, jobless data

Duration: 02:06s 0 shares 1 views

Investors cautious on virus rise, jobless data
Investors cautious on virus rise, jobless data

Stocks were little changed Thursday after a spike in new COVID-19 cases and stubbornly high levels of joblessness made for a skittish trading day.

Conway G.

Gittens has more.

Investors tread lightly on Thursday worried some states reopened too quickly and the pace of the economic rebound is slowing.

The Dow lost ground for a second day in a row.

The S&P 500 was basically flat.

The Nasdaq squeezed out gains.

Unnerving investors: Another 1.5 million Americans filed for first-time unemployment benefits last week, according to the Labor Department.

The weekly numbers are still running double the peak seen during the great recession.

At least 29 million people are collecting unemployment checks.

Terence Gabriel, analyst, Thomson Reuters Stocks Buzz says doubt is creeping into what had been rock-solid Wall Street optimism.

"So a lot of investors here in the market are starting to worry about a possible disconnect that has developed in the market - very strong market off the March lows.

The S&P 500 up well over 40 percent at one point.

But nevertheless, given the decline we expect to see in earnings, there does seem to be a lit of tension developing within the market in terms of how it is going to resolve that." On the corporate front, McDonald's says it will hire 260,000 restaurant employees in the U.S. this summer as dine-in service returns... Supermarket chain Kroger easily topped quarterly revenue and profit forecasts.

The company benefitted from consumers stocking-up on food and other essentials but warned it doesn't expect that pace of buying to continue.

So it decided not to raise full-year estimates.

The stock fell 3 percent.

Spotify surged to a record high thanks to a 13 percent rally in the stock.

The streaming audio service signed an exclusive content deal with Warner Bros.

And DC Entertainment to launch podcasts featuring popular superheroes Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman.

Spotify has been expanding beyond music to build on a recent surge in paid subscribers.

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