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Investing.com — U.S. stock markets opened mixed on Thursday, losing some early momentum from futures markets, after a rise in initial jobless claims added to concerns that the renewed spread of the Covid-19 virus could disrupt the economic recovery.
By 9:45 AM ET (1345 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 6 points, effectively flat, at 34,792 points. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite were both fractionally higher, after another round of generally solid earnings updates.
Earlier, the Labor Department had said initial jobless claims had risen to 419,000 last week, their highest in two months.
There was also a note of caution from the semiconductor sector, after Texas Instruments (NASDAQ:TXN) issued conspicuously conservative guidance for the current quarter late on Wednesday. Texas stock was down 5.0% in early trading. Intel (NASDAQ:INTC), the U.S.’s biggest chipmaker, reports its earnings after the closing bell.
DR Horton (NYSE:DHI) stock was also lower by 4.7% on concerns that the best of the housing market boom may be over. The homebuilder reported a 77% rise in net profit but warned that it had had to slow the acceptance of customer orders due to high lumber prices and a shortage of labor. Lumber prices more than quadrupled in the year after the pandemic erupted. They had fallen sharply in recent weeks but are still nearly 50% above end-2019 levels, and the spread of wildfires this week across Canada has threatened a key source of supply, pushing prices higher again.
Didi Global ADRs (NYSE:DIDI) were again prominent, losing 9.0% after Bloomberg reported that Chinese authorities are planning “possibly unprecedented” penalties against the company for defying regulators who advised it to delay its initial public offering in New York. Bloomberg said the penalties may even include forcing it to delist.
