U.S. Stocks Turn Lower After GDP Dips for Q2

By Liz Moyer

Investing.com -- U.S. stocks turned lower in morning trading after news the economy weakened in the second quarter.

At 10:17 AM ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 138 points, or 0.4%, while the S&P 500 fell 0.5% and the NASDAQ Composite fell 0.7%.

Investors expect the Federal Reserve to slow the pace of interest rate increases after yet another 0.75-point hike on Wednesday as it tries to tame inflation. 

Then, this morning, the first reading of second quarter gross domestic product showed a drop of 0.9%, the second-straight contraction. That’s considered by many to be a recession signal, though the Biden administration has been out refuting the idea of a recession in recent days.

Tech earnings have also been driving stock market gains this week, with the Nasdaq surging more than 4% on Wednesday. Today brings reports from Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) after the closing bell.

Spirit Airlines Inc (NYSE:SAVE) stock rose 3.3% after JetBlue Airways Corp (NASDAQ:JBLU) said it would buy the discount carrier for $3.8 billion, the culmination of a months-long drama that had Spirit terminate another agreement with Frontier Group Holdings on Wednesday as shareholders were set to reject the transaction. JetBlue stock fell 2.8%.

Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META) shares fell 7.7% after the Facebook parent revealed a pullback in digital advertising on the way to worse-than-expected results.

Oil gained. Crude Oil WTI Futures was up 0.1% to $97.36 a barrel, while Brent Oil Futures rose 0.4%, to $104.12 a barrel. Gold Futures rose 1.6%, to $1,746 an ounce.