By Chibuike Oguh
NEW YORK (Reuters) -The benchmark and the Dow Jones ended lower in choppy trading on Thursday as a short-lived boost from a series of economic reports faded and investors turned their eyes to key jobs data due on Friday. The Nasdaq finished slightly higher.
Markets have been tense ahead of the release of the expanded nonfarm payrolls data – which will likely pave the way for the Federal Reserve to start cutting interest rates later this month.
Earlier in the session, Wall Street’s major indexes rose as reports helped ease concerns about a deterioration in the labor market. The Institute for Supply Management survey shows service sector activity increased in August, while jobless claims fell last week, Labor Department data show.
Eight of the 11 S&P 500 sectors lost ground, led by declines in healthcare and industrial stocks. The consumer discretionary sector led the gainers, driven in part by Tesla (NASDAQ:).
“The markets have been on this risk-on, risk-off roller coaster because they looked at the data as the Fed has said, ‘we’re going to look at the data,’” said Wasif Latif, president and chief investment officer at Sarmaya Partners. Princeton, New Jersey.
“The market is watching the data to get a sense of what the economy looks like in terms of the landing scenario and what that means for the Fed’s interest rate policy.”
September has been historically weak for US stocks, with the S&P 500 down an average of about 1.2% for the month since 1928. The index is down more than 2.5% so far this week and technology stocks are down about 4.8%.
In August, U.S. private employers hired the fewest workers since January 2021 and data for the previous month was revised downward, possibly signaling a sharp slowdown in the labor market, according to the ADP National Employment Report.
“The market wants some softness in the numbers, but it is a narrow path as the stock market is priced for a soft landing or no-landing scenario in our view, while the bond market is slightly more expensive given interest rate cut expectations priced for a recession,” Latif added.
The S&P 500 lost 219.22 points, or 0.54%, to 40,755.75, the S&P 500 lost 16.66 points, or 0.30%, to 5,503.41 and gained 43.37 points, or 0.25 %, to 17,127.66.
Tesla gained nearly 5% after the electric vehicle maker said it will launch its full self-driving advanced driver assistance software in Europe and China in the first quarter of next year, pending regulatory approval.
Frontier Communications (OTC:) fell 10% after Verizon (NYSE:) said it would buy the company in an all-cash deal worth $20 billion. Verizon shares fell 0.4%.
JetBlue Airways (NASDAQ:) rose 7% after the airline raised its third-quarter revenue forecast.
The S&P 500 posted 42 new 52-week highs and 9 new lows, while the Nasdaq Composite posted 43 new highs and 136 new lows.
Total volume on US exchanges was approximately 10.6 billion shares, slightly below a 20-day moving average of 10.7 billion shares.
