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Investing.com — U.S. stock markets opened lower on Wednesday, consolidating after a wild rally on Tuesday in volumes that were extraordinarily high for a holiday week.
A market that’s in a hurry to have the 2021 recovery begin earlier received a reality check that 2020 still has a ways to run, as initial jobless claims rose for a second straight week to 778,000. Analysts had expected a decline to 730,000.
By 9:35 AM ET (1435 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 109 points, or 0.4% at 29,937 points. The S&P 500, which like the Dow had closed at a record high on Tuesday, was down 0.2%, while the Nasdaq Composite was up 0.3%.
The Commerce Department, meanwhile, left its estimate for third-quarter GDP growth unchanged at an annualized 33.1%. That vigorous summer rebound now seems some time ago, with states and municipalities again slapping restrictions on social and business life to stop the Covid-19 virus from overwhelming their healthcare systems. The U.S. set a new record of 86,000 hospitalized on Monday, while an average 1,500 Americans died of the disease every day for the last week.
