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Markets are still waiting to hear if Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will be renominated.
Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was lower on Thursday after disappointing jobless claims data. Technology stocks were rising, thanks in large part to gains in
Nvidia
and
Tesla
.
In midday trading, the Dow dropped 105 points, or 0.3%, after the index fell 211 points Wednesday to close at 35,931. The
S&P 500
rose 0.2%, while the
Nasdaq Composite
gained 0.4%.
“There’s extreme uncertainty about how the next couple of months are going to play out,” said Dennis DeBusschere, president of 22 Research. “Every data point, the potential inflation threat, is going to lead to volatility.”
Initial jobless claims were 268,000, slightly worse than expectations for 260,000, but a slight improvement from the previous week’s revised result of 269,000.
Any signal that people are refraining from entering the workforce can stoke fears of higher wages and inflation, which could prompt the Federal Reserve to lift interest rates, which could hurt economic growth.
While the jobless claims result didn’t miss estimates by much and it’s only one data point, “anything that reinforces the uncertainty around labor force participation is going to be an issue for equities,” DeBusschere said.
Boosting the Nasdaq were Nvidia (ticker: NVDA) and Tesla (ticker: TSLA), which were up 10% and 1.5%, respectively. Their combined market capitalization of $1.8 trillion accounts for about 7% of the Nasdaq’s aggregate market cap, so big moves in these stocks have a heavy influence over the index’s movements.
On Wednesday, Nvidia reported a profit of $1.17 a share, beating estimates of $1.11 a share, on sales of $7.1 billion, above expectations for $6.8 billion. The company also expects sales in the current quarter of $7.4 billion, higher than the consensus analyst forecast of $6.9 billion. Alongside Nvidia’s gain, the
iShares Semiconductor
Exchange-Traded Fund (SOXX) was up 1.7%.
Some of the optimism in semiconductors could be related to higher expected supply of chips, which would help companies meet sales expectations. “Nvidia posted strong earnings after the close and that’s helping to ease some anxiety around chip supplies,” wrote Tom…