U.S. stocks drifted slightly lower Thursday to cap a quarter in which Federal Reserve monetary tightening and the Russian invasion of Ukraine have weighed on sentiment.
What’s happening
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The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
-0.41%
fell 113 points, or 0.3%, to 35,114.
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The S&P 500
SPX,
-0.21%
was down 15 points, or 03%, at 4,588.
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The Nasdaq Composite
COMP,
-0.23%
shed 75 points, or 0.5%, to trade at 14,368.
On Wednesday, the Dow and S&P 500 snapped a four-day winning streak, while the Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.2% after back-to-back gains.
Despite a recent winning run, it’s been a rough January-to-March period for the stock market. Heading into the last day of the quarter, the S&P 500 had declined 3% — snapping a seven-quarter streak of gains — and the Nasdaq Composite has retreated 8%.
What’s driving markets
Investors were digesting a heavy slate of U.S. economic figures Thursday, including data on personal consumption and expenditures. The PCE core price index, the Fed’s favored inflation measure, rose 5.4% year over year in February, up from 5.2% a month earlier. The data showed consumer spending rose 0.2% in February, below forecast. Meanwhile, data on weekly jobless claims showed first-time applications for unemployment benefits rose 14,000 last week to 202,000.
However, investors were also watching the White House, after news that President Joe Biden was prepared to order the release of up to 1 million barrels of oil a day from the nation’s strategic petroleum reserve.
Oil futures
CL.1,
-4.08%
fell sharply, but were off session lows. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, including Russia, agreed, as expected, early Thursday to stick with a plan to boost output by 432,000 barrels a day in May. OPEC+ has resisted pleas to more rapidly boost production.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, offered to hold another round of peace talks between Ukraine and Russia, as he said Russian soldiers had not been redeployed away from some areas as promised. Russia shelled Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital.
See: War in Ukraine: Zelensky says defense of his country is at a ‘turning point’ as Russian attacks intensify
Companies in focus
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Shares of Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc.
WBA,
-4.72%
fell 5.8% after drugstore chain reported fiscal second-quarter profit and sales that beat expectations.
What other assets are doing
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The yield on the 10-year Treasury note
TMUBMUSD10Y,
2.326%
fell 2.5 basis points to 2.335%. Yields and debt prices move opposite each other.
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The ICE U.S. Dollar Index
DXY,
+0.29%,
a measure of the currency against a basket of six major rivals, was up 0.5%.
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Gold futures
GC00,
+0.48%
rose 0.4% to around $1,947 an ounce.
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Bitcoin
BTCUSD,
-1.35%
ticked down 0.2% to trade near $47,000.
