By Caroline Valetkevitch
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Global stock indexes were mostly lower on Thursday, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq falling with shares of Apple, and the U.S. dollar advanced after weaker-than-expected U.S. jobless claims data.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell unexpectedly to 216,000 in the week ended Sept. 2 from a revised 229,000 the week before. The latest week’s numbers were the lowest since February.
A separate report showed U.S. worker productivity in the second quarter was not as strong as initially announced.
Recent data has underscored the view that the U.S. economy remains resilient and that U.S. interest rates may need to stay higher for longer.
China’s onshore yuan slid to a 16-year low versus the dollar, weighed down by a property slump, weak consumer spending and shrinking credit growth in the world’s second-largest economy.
China trade data released on Thursday, while not as dire as economists predicted, still showed a nearly 9% slide in exports and a more than 7% drop for imports.
The U.S. dollar index was up 0.1%, with the euro down 0.22% to $1.0703.
Recent economic reports are “supporting the case for continued aggregate income growth while pushing recession worries further into the future,” said Karl Schamotta, chief market strategist at Corpay in Toronto.
Shares of Apple were down 3.2% after sources familiar with the matter said China has in recent weeks widened existing curbs on the use of iPhones by state employees.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 93.72 points, or 0.27%, to 34,536.91, the S&P 500 lost 15 points, or 0.34%, to 4,450.48 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 156.57 points, or 1.13%, to 13,715.90.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index lost 0.14% and MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe shed 0.36%.
U.S. Treasury yields mostly slipped following the U.S. economic data.
The yield on the benchmark U.S. 10-year Treasury note fell to 4.27%.
In the energy market, U.S. crude recently was unchanged at $87.54 per barrel and Brent was at $90.48, down 0.13% on the day.
(Additional reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York, Marc Jones in London and Kevin Buckland in Tokyo; Editing by Susan Fenton and Nick Zieminski)
