Investing.com – Wall Street traded mostly lower on Thursday with the Nasdaq fighting for gains as investors continued to react to numerous earnings reports and, with the Federal Reserve (Fed) on almost a two-month hiatus after the prior session’s monetary policy decision, began to turn their attention to the U.S. second quarter gross domestic product (GDP) out on Friday.
At 15:20GMT, or 11:20AM ET, the Dow 30 fell 78 points, or 0.42%, the S&P 500 lost 5 points, or 0.22%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite traded flat.
Traders were eying big moves in several companies on Thursday after mixed quarterly earnings with the tech index attempting to stay afloat.
Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) shares jumped more than 2% to a record high after the social media giant reported second quarter revenue and user growth that exceeded estimates after Wednesday's closing bell.
In another stellar move, Groupon Inc (NASDAQ:GRPN) spiked nearly 24% following the company's better than expected second quarter earnings release.
Not all the earnings news was positive as Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) led the S&P 500 lower, plummeting nearly 10% on disappointing quarterly numbers.
Whole Foods Market (NASDAQ:WFM) too plunged around 9% after the organic food retailer posted weaker than expected second quarter revenue and same-store sales, leading to what could be its first decline in annual sales since 2009.
Investors were also looking ahead to numbers after the close from Google’s parent company Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) or Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN).
Outside of earnings, Netsuite Inc (NYSE:N) popped 18% on Thursday after Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) announced that it would acquire the cloud company for $9.3 billion.
The data calendar was relatively light on Thursday with weekly jobless claims rising more than expected, though they still remained within territory consistent with a firming labor market and the less-volatile four-week moving average dropped.
With the Fed meeting on Wednesday offering no surprises in terms of interest rates along with a relatively upbeat outlook on the economy that still gave no indications of an imminent rate increase, investors looked ahead to Friday’s publication of the advanced second quarter GDP to measure the strength of the U.S. economy.
The Atlanta Fed slashed its forecast to 1.8% on Thursday, from the prior 2.3%, due to the U.S. Census Bureau's inaugural release of its advance economic indicators report, which covers retail and wholesale inventories and foreign trade in goods.
Fed fund futures had taken a rate hike back off the table for this year after Wednesday’s monetary policy decision.
The odds on a move in December dropped below the 50% threshold, according to Fed fund futures, only passing that mark now for the March 15, 2017 decision.
According to CME Group’s FedWatch tool, the probability of a hike in September eased to 18% from the 19.5% probability shown prior to the meeting.
Elsewhere, oil prices continued to move lower on Thursday after a Reuters report that Genscape data had shown a surprise build of 300,000 barrels in U.S. stockpiles in the week up to July 26.
That came after losses of more than 2% on Wednesday when official crude oil inventories registered a surprise build of 1.7 million barrels the previous week.
U.S. crude futures fell 1.26% to $41.39 a barrel by 15:23GMT or 11:23AM ET, while Brent oil lost 0.80% to $43.56.