The stock exchanges in New York opened slightly lower on Thursday, after the pluses a day earlier. Investors on Wall Street were presented with better-than-expected figures on US benefit requests and quarterly results from telecom and media group AT&T and airline Southwest Airlines, among others. The news was also processed that the European Central Bank (ECB) is leaving its monetary policy unchanged for the time being.
Welfare claims in the United States last week reached 547,000, which is lower than a week earlier and also less than economists had expected. It is also the lowest level since the corona pandemic outbreak. The figure indicates that the US labor market is further recovering from the corona crisis. Shortly after opening, there will also be data on the US housing market.
Shortly after the opening bell, the Dow Jones index recorded a loss of 0.4 percent at 34,004 points. The broad S&P 500 dropped 0.3 percent to 4,163 points and the technology gauge Nasdaq dropped 0.2 percent to 13,928 points.
Mobile subscribers
AT&T was more than 4 percent higher. The company gained more mobile subscribers than expected. The number of customers for his streaming service HBO Max also increased further. AT&T takes on HBO Max against Netflix and Disney +. Netflix went down 0.3 percent, after having fallen sharply a day earlier due to strongly disappointing figures about the growth of new customers in the first quarter.
Southwest Airlines climbed 0.6 percent. The airline saw its turnover drop sharply in the recent period due to the continuing malaise in aviation due to the corona pandemic, which resulted in much less flying. Southwest did say bookings are picking up thanks to the vaccinations. Industry colleague American Airlines also opened the books and fell 1.4 percent.
Other companies with quarterly releases included white goods manufacturer Whirlpool (plus 2.3 percent), restaurant chain Chipotle Mexican Grill (plus 0.4 percent) and homebuilder DR Horton (minus 2.6 percent).
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