Investing.com -- U.S. stocks were mixed on Thursday, losing momentum from the strongest two day rally since late-March, as investors traded cautiously ahead of a speech from Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen and oil pared gains after hitting $50 a barrel for the first time this year.
On Thursday, crude futures surged to their highest level since mid-October amid further production outages in Nigeria before dropping mildly after reports that Saudi Aramco will ramp up output by 1 million barrels per day to meet added demand in Asia. U.S. crude futures are now up approximately 80% since hitting 13-year lows in the middle of February. As a result, stocks in the energy industry are up 12% this year – the top performing sector on the S&P 500 Composite index. Oil prices, however, could be in line for a pullback next week if OPEC leaves production steady, as expected at a closely-watched meeting.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 23.22 or 0.13% to 17,828.29, while the S&P 500 fell 0.44 or 0.02% to 2,090.10 as the major indices remained flat for the month of May. The NASDAQ Composite index, meanwhile, inched up 6.88 or 0.14% to 4,901.77, amid strong performances from Yahoo! Inc (NASDAQ:YHOO) and Netflix Inc (NASDAQ:NFLX). On the S&P 500, five of 10 sectors closed in the red as stocks in the Basic Materials, Energy and Financials industries lagged. Stocks in the Utilities and Telecommunications sector led, each gaining more than 0.2%.
Investors closely monitored the IPO market on Thursday, as U.S. Foods made its debut as a publicly traded stock. U.S. Foods, the second-largest food distributor in the U.S., ended the session at 25.00, up 2.00 or 8.70%. For the session, six companies debuted on Wall Street on Thursday as the IPO market continues to pick up from an extremely slow start to the year.
The top performer on the Dow was Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL), which gained 0.88 or 0.88% to 100.50. Earlier on Thursday, Venture Beat reported that the tech giant is considering plans to incorporate a voice-activated virtual assistant into a new version of its AppleTV as a way of competing with Amazon.com's (NASDAQ:AMZN) Echo product. The worst performer was EI du Pont de Nemours and Company (NYSE:DD), which lost 1.24 or 1.82% to 66.99. Shares in DuPont (NYSE:DD) have moved lower this week after Monsanto Company (NYSE:MON) rejected a $62 billion takeover bid from Bayer (DE:BAYGN) in a deal that could have limited competition in the chemical seed industry dramatically.
The biggest gainer on the NASDAQ was Dollar Tree Inc (NASDAQ:DLTR), which soared 10.30 or 13.14% to 88.66. Shares in Dollar Tree popped after the leading discount store retailer said Thursday that sales doubled last quarter prompting it to raise its forward outlook for the year. The worst performer was Carnival (LON:CCL), which slumped 2.03 or 4.08% to 47.61 after Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) lowered the price target for the popular cruise line on Thursday, amid sharp declines in rates in China. Dollar Tree was also the top performer on the S&P 500, ahead of HP Inc (NYSE:HPQ) which added 0.84 or 6.89% to 13.08. Carnival finished as the worst performer on the S&P 500, as well, just below Range Resources Corporation (NYSE:RRC), which lost 1.39 or 3.23% to 41.61.
On the New York Stock Exchange, declining issues outnumbered advancing issues by a 1,587-1,452 margin.