Investing.com – Wall Street traded lower on Thursday as investors continued to chew over corporate earnings and mull the possibility of the Federal Reserve (Fed) hiking rates this year.
At 12:04AM ET (16:04GMT), the Dow Jones gained 34 points, or 0.19%, the S&P 500 rose 2 points, or 0.11% while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite traded down 6 points, or 0.12%.
Thursday was lulled as the “busiest day” of the earnings season with 61 S&P companies presenting their quarterly report. Added to the 213 that have already published, that would take the total over half of the 500 on the principal benchmark index.
Still trading has been muted with the S&P 500 reluctant to move more than 1% in closing prices since last October 11 as market participants looked ahead to this Friday’s report on third quarter gross domestic product to be followed next week by the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) decision on monetary policy.
Despite the drop in equities, fixed income was also being sold off on Thursday with the yield on Treasuries hitting its highest level since last May as market players appeared to accept that the Fed would make a move this year to return to policy normalization.
The U.S. central bank holds its next two-day monetary policy meeting on November 1 and 2 with markets currently only pricing in the odds of a rate hike at 9.3%, according to Investing.com’s Fed Rate Monitor Tool.
Analysts widely believe that the U.S. central bank will hold off on making a move next week due to the fact that the presidential elections take place shortly afterwards on November 8.
Fed fund futures currently place the probability of a move at the following meeting in December at 78.5%.
On Thursday’s economic calendar, jobless claims fell less than expected, but continued to show a healthy labor market.
U.S. durable goods also disappointed with an unexpected decrease in September.
The one positive note for the day came from pending home sales as they increased more than expected last month.
On the company front, Tesla Motors (NASDAQ:TSLA), Twitter (NYSE:TWTR), UPS (NYSE:UPS), Dow Chemical(NYSE:DOW), Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE:CL), Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY), ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP), Blackstone (NYSE:BX), and Dr Pepper Snapple (NYSE:DPS) were among companies pricing in earnings on Thursday.
After the bell, results are expected from Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN), Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU), LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD), and Aflac (NYSE:AFL).
Outside of earnings, Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) announced on Thursday a deal to purchase NXP Semiconductors NV (NASDAQ:NXPI) for $110 a share in a move designed to expand its reach in chips from phones to cars.
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) announced that it will delay shipment of its new AirPod wireless headphones.
Meanwhile, oil prices climbed during North American hours on Thursday, pulling further away from the prior session's three-week low amid renewed optimism over the implementation of a planned deal by OPEC to limit production.
Saudi Arabia and its Gulf OPEC allies are willing to cut 4% from their peak oil output, energy ministers from the Gulf countries told their Russian counterpart this week, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
U.S. crude futures gained 1.61% to $49.97 by 12:06AM ET (16:06GMT), while Brent oil traded up 1.72% to $50.84.