Investing.com – U.S. stocks attempted to regain July-highs on Thursday amidst a slew of earnings reports with a negative balance and mixed economic data, while oil moved lower in a session of volatile trade.
At 15:40GMT, or 11:40AM ET, the Dow Jones fell 48 points, or 0.26%, while the S&P 500 lost 4 points, or 0.19%, and the tech-heavy NASDAQ Composite traded up 6 points, or 0.12%.
The balance of earnings results was largely negative on Thursday with blue chip companies reporting leading the decliners on the Dow.
The Travelers Companies (NYSE:TRV) sank 4% after the insurer reported a 17% decline in quarterly profit.
Verizon Communications Inc (NYSE:VZ) was down more than 3% after reporting inline earnings but a planned strike was expected to hurt the current quarter’s results.
In the positive, General Motors (NYSE:GM) was up almost 2% after blowing away consensus forecasts with its own quarterly report.
Visa, Microsoft and Google will report after the market close.
In economic news, the U.S. labor market continued firming as initial jobless claims unexpectedly declined last week, bolstering optimism on the American economy.
In worse news, manufacturing activity in the region covered by the Philadelphia Fed unexpectedly entered contraction in April. However, the indicator for future activity did give a positive read suggesting that the contraction could be temporary.
In lesser reports, the house price index rose 5.6% on the year, while the Conference Board’s leading index edged up 0.2% in March, less than the 0.4% expected.
Meanwhile, oil moved down after early gains in volatile trade on Thursday as investors weighed forecasts for production.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) said that 2016 would see the biggest fall in non-OPEC production in a generation, helping rebalance a market that has been dogged by oversupply.
Russia's energy minister said it might push oil production to historic highs of over 12 million barrels per day (bpd), while Iran reiterated its intention reach its pre-sanction output of 4 million bpd as soon as possible.
In this context, U.S. crude futures fell 1.29% to $43.61 a barrel by 15:43GMT, or 11:43AM ET, while Brent oil lost 1.48% to $45.22.
Of note, market participants began to turn their thoughts to the Federal Reserve monetary policy decision next week after the European Central Bank (ECB) decided on Thursday to hold off on further easing.