Investing.com – U.S. equities closed mostly lower on Thursday, as gains in Financials were offset by losses in health care, after President Trump’s budget blueprint proposed budget cuts to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Healthcare stocks nosedived, as President Trump’s budget blueprint proposed cutting the NIH budget by $5.8 billion while Financials, mostly banks, traded tentatively higher after the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates on Wednesday.
The Federal Reserve on Wednesday, raised interest rates by 0.25% to a target range of 0.75% to 1% but kept its previous forecast of three rate increases this year unchanged.
Meanwhile economic data failed to lift sentiment while U.S. crude futures struggled to hold onto gains from the previous session.
U.S crude futures settled slightly lower at $48.75, as focus shifted to the elevated levels of U.S. crude stockpiles amid concerns that The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) would not extend its production cuts beyond the six-month period agreed last November.
Weekly initial jobless claims fell to 241,000. Housing starts rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.288 million in February while the Philadelphia Fed Index topped forecasts at 32.8 for March. Both the Philadelphia Fed Index and the housing starts beat forecasts.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 0.07% lower at 20,934. The S&P 500 lost 0.16% and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.01% to close at 5,900.
In corporate earnings news, Adobe shares popped in after-hours trade, after the software company posted better than expected quarterly results.
The top S&P 500 gainers included Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) up 6.2%, and Frontier Communications Corporation (NASDAQ:FTR) up 4.1%, while NRG Energy Inc (NYSE:NRG) added 2.5%.
Biogen Inc (NASDAQ:BIIB) down 4.7%, Illumina Inc (NASDAQ:ILMN) down 3.9% and Newmont Mining Corporation (NYSE:NEM) 3.8%, were among the worst S&P 500 performers of the session.