Investing.com – Wall Street traded lower on Thursday as investors took profit from the prior session’s gains and buying enthusiasm in banks and a positive read on growth were unable to support the wider market.
At 11:11AM ET (15:11GMT), the Dow Jones fell 56 points, or 0.26%, the S&P 500 lost 14 points, or 0.58%, while the Nasdaq Composite traded down 85 points, or 1.36%.
Tech was once again leading the losses Wednesday , nearly erasing what had been the Nasdaq’s largest one day rise since last November in the prior session.
Financial institutions celebrated the fact that the Federal Reserve (Fed) did not object to any of the capital plans of the 34 banks it reviewed in the second part of the annual stress tests implemented in the wake of the financial crisis.
Several big Wall Street banks announced significant increases in their plans to return capital to shareholders after getting the green light from the U.S. central bank.
The KBW bank index, known as the BKX, jumped nearly 2%, with Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) and JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM) leading the advancers on the Dow.
In other company news, Staples (NASDAQ:SPLS) jumped 2% after the retailer confirmed a definitive agreement to be acquired by Sycamore Partners for $10.25 a share.
On the downside, Rite Aid (NYSE:RAD) tumbled 25% as Walgreens Boots Alliance (NASDAQ:WBA) opted to abandon the merger offer due to concerns over anti-trust and instead decided to buy nearly half of the smaller rival's U.S. stores for $5.18 billion.
Positive news came from the economic front, as first quarter growth was surprisingly revised up to 1.4%.
Although weekly jobless claims came in above forecasts, the data confirmed the continuation of the solid U.S. labor market.
Still ahead, St. Louis Fed president James Bullard was scheduled to give a presentation on the U.S. monetary policy and the economy at 1:00PM ET (17:00GMT).
Meanwhile, oil prices extended gains into a sixth session to hit the strongest level in two weeks in North American trade on Thursday, after U.S. government data revealed the biggest weekly decline in domestic crude production in almost a year.
Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration on Wednesday showed that total domestic crude production fell by 100,000 barrels a day to 9.25 million barrels, the biggest decline in weekly output since July 2016.
U.S. crude futures gained 1.43% to $45.38 by 11:14AM ET (15:14GMT), while Brent oil traded up 1.43% to $48.22.