LONDON: U.S. stocks closed slightly lower Thursday following a session of slight gains and declines as investors digested a mixed batch of economic reports and Federal Reserve speakers in light of a stream of better-than-expected earnings.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.04% which was up as high as 57 points on the session, closed down 6.84 points at 18,105.77. About two-thirds of the blue-chip indexes’s 30 components closed lower.
The S&P 500 index SPX, -0.08% declined 1.64 points to finish at 2,104.99, with seven out of the indexes 10 major sectors declining, led by utilities and telecom stocks.
Meanwhile, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite COMP, -0.06% retreated 3.23 points to close at 5,007.79. An 18% rally in Netflix Inc. NFLX, +18.21% shares helped support the index. Shares hit a record-high of $568.75 after the video-streaming and DVD-rental company, after the close of trading on Wednesday, said that added 4.88 million subscribers in the first quarter.
Choppy trading in stocks on Thursday came after a pullback from Wednesday’s advances, when better-than-expected earnings and a jump in oil prices sent the benchmarks close to record closing levels. The S&P 500 ended just 0.5% shy of its all-time close of 2,117.39 hit Monday, March 2, while the Dow average missed its record by 1%.
