Asia Morning US Stocks Lower on Downbeat Data

On Thursday U.S. stocks pared a part of gains made in the prior session. Market sentiment was dampened by a series of downbeat economic data.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 288 points (-1.2%) to 24,345, and the S&P 500 lost 27 points (-0.9%) to 2,912, while the Nasdaq 100 edged up 17 points (+0.2%) to 9,000.

Source: GAIN Capital, TradingView

Automobiles & Components (-4.7%), Banks (-3.19%) and Semiconductors & Semiconductor Equipment (-3.1%) sectors lost the most. 

Tapestry (TPR -12.4%), Textron (TXT -12.2%), Molson Coors Brewing (TAP -11.2%), Harley-Davidson (HOG -10.4%) and Gap (GPS -10.3%) lost the most.

On the other hand, Abiomed (ABMD +13.1%), Facebook (FB +5.4%), Marathon Oil (MRO +4.6%) and Amazon.com (AMZN +4.3%) were top gainers.

In after-market hours, Amazon.com (AMZN) traded 5% lower. Apple (AAPL) , United Airlines (UAL), Gilead Sciences (GILD) and Amgen (AMGN) also dropped.

On the technical side, about 31.0% (25.2% in the prior session) of stocks in the S&P 500 Index were trading above their 200-day moving average, and 90.9% (93.3% in the prior session) were above their 20-day moving average.

The U.S. Labor Department report that Initial Jobless Claims for the week ended April 25 amounted to 3.839 million (3.500 million expected).

Personal Income fell 2.0% on month in March (-1.5% expected), the biggest fall since 2013. Personal Spending dropped 7.5% (-5.0% expected), the largest decline on record.

The Market News International Chicago Business Barometer slipped to 35.4 in April (37.7 expected), the lowest level since 2009. 

Later today, latest data on the Markit U.S. Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (36.7 expected), the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) Manufacturing PMI (36.0 expected), and Construction Spending (-3.5% on month expected) will be reported.

Meanwhile, the U.S. federal government's coronavirus social distancing guidelines expired on Thursday, and President Donald Trump said those guidelines will not be extended.

European stocks turned to the downside, with the Stoxx Europe 600 Index falling 2.0%. Germany's DAX lost 2.2%, France's CAC slipped 2.1%, and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 slumped 3.5%.

U.S. Treasury prices stabilized, as the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yield eased to 0.619% from 0.622% Wednesday.

Spot gold tumbled 25 dollars or 1.5% to $1,686 an ounce.

Oil prices advanced further, as U.S. WTI crude oil futures (June) jumped 25.0% to $18.84 a barrel, and Brent crude oil futures gained 11.0% to $25.27 a barrel.