U.S. Stocks Wobble After Strong Reports on Retail Sales, Jobless Claims

By Liz Moyer

Investing.com -- U.S. stocks turned lower on Thursday as investors tried to digest a slug of economic data ahead of the Federal Reserve’s meeting next week.

At 10:34 ET (14:34 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 8 points, or about flat, while the S&P 500 was down 0.4% and the NASDAQ Composite was down 0.6%.

August’s retail sales report showed a gain of 0.3%, surpassing forecasts and a strong showing for the consumer despite inflation. Meanwhile, new jobless claims came in at 213,000 last week, also beating expectations.

A strong labor market, the gain in retail sales, and a hotter-than-hoped-for August inflation report are pointing in the direction of another 0.75 percentage point interest rate increase from the Fed, which would match the hikes from June and July. Some are even talking about the possibility the Fed hikes rates by a full percentage point in its quest to tame inflation.

A tentative agreement to avert a railroad worker strike is lifting shares of railroads, including Union Pacific Corporation (NYSE:UNP), up 2%, and Norfolk Southern Corporation (NYSE:NSC), up 1.8%.

Oil fell. Crude Oil WTI Futures was down more than 3%, to $85.75 a barrel, while Brent Oil Futures crude was down 3% to $91.17 a share. Gold Futures fell 0.9% to $1693 an ounce.