Investing.com - Wall Street opened flat to slightly lower on Thursday as investors digested the Federal Reserve’s patient monetary policy stance and the latest batch of earnings reports.
At 9:42 AM ET (13:42 GMT), the Dow Jones was down 28 points, or 0.11%, the S&P 500 dipped 1.5 points, or 0.06%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite traded up 4 points, or 0.06%.
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said Wednesday that the central bank saw no immediate need to cut interest rates, despite below-target inflation and intensifying calls for a rate cut by President Donald Trump.
Shares in Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) were up more than 5% after the company announced plans to raise up to $2 billion from investors, split one-third in equity and two-thirds in convertible notes.
Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) shares added on more than 2% after reporting it would get about $4.5 billion from Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) through their recent settlement. The market paid less attention to a weak outlook for the current quarter.
Square (NYSE:SQ) shares were down 7% after the payments processor reported disappointing payment volume numbers in the first quarter, even as results beat estimates.
On the data front, the weekly report on initial jobless claims showed that the number of Americans filing applications for unemployment benefits was flat at 230,000 last week, but the trend remained consistent with tightening labor market conditions.
Another report showed that U.S. worker productivity increased at its fastest pace in more than four years in the first quarter, depressing labor costs and suggesting inflation could remain tame for a while.
A report on factory orders due at 10 AM ET was expected to show an increase of 1.0% in March after a fall of 0.5% in the month before.
In the currency market, the U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, was keeping its post-Fed gains, at 97.493.