Investing.com – U.S. stocks closed lower on Thursday, as risk off sentiment continued for a third straight day, despite bullish earnings from banks and upbeat U.S. economic data.
The three main U.S. indexes ended the week in negative, as investors fled risk assets amid a rise in geopolitical tensions, after news that the U.S. military dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb on an ISIS tunnel.
The U.S. deployed the GBU-43B, a 21,000-pound bomb on an ISIS tunnel complex in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday.
President Trump said that “this was another successful mission” and later added that the North Korean problem will be "taken care of".
Meanwhile, upbeat consumer sentiment and initial jobless claims data failed to lift sentiment while US producer prices dropped for the first time in seven months.
The Labor Department said on Thursday, initial jobless claims fell by 1,000 to a 234,000 for the week ended April 8 while the producer price index for final demand slipped 0.1% last month.
The University of Michigan said its consumer sentiment index climbed to 98.0 in April, well above expectations of a fall to 96.5.
In corporate earnings news, Citigroup Inc, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan reported first quarter results on Thursday, with the latter – JPMorgan – the best of the bunch, after the investment bank revealed an impressive first quarter performance.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 0.67% lower at 20,453. The S&P 500 lost 0.68% and the Nasdaq Composite closed 0.53% higher at 5805.15.
S&P 500 ‘movers and shakers’
The top S&P 500 gainers included; Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:ALXN) up 3.3%, and Incyte Corporation (NASDAQ:INCY) 1.9%, while Coty Inc (NYSE:COTY) added 1.6%.
Chesapeake Energy Corporation (NYSE:CHK) down 4.2%, Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NASDAQ:AMD) down 3.5% and Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC) down 3.3%, were among the worst S&P 500 performers of the session.