On Thursday, February's job cuts in the US escalated to the highest levels since July 2020, contributing to a significant decline in benchmark equity indexes. The Nasdaq Composite experienced a drop of 2.6%, settling at 18,069.3, while the S&P 500 fell by 1.8% to 5,738.5. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also took a hit, decreasing by 1% to 42,579.1.
Among the sectors, consumer discretionary and real estate were the top decliners, with only the energy sector managing to post gains. In treasuries, the yields displayed a mixed response, as the 10-year rate remained relatively stable at 4.291%, and the two-year rate showed a decline of 3.3 basis points, ending at 3.98%.
The price of April West Texas Intermediate crude oil saw a slight decrease of 0.1%, bringing it down to $66.28 per barrel on Thursday. From an economic perspective, job cuts surged in February, influenced by various factors including actions taken by the Department of Government Efficiency, canceled government contracts, concerns over potential trade wars, and increasing bankruptcies.
Andrew Challenger, senior vice president of Challenger Gray & Christmas, highlighted these issues in a recent report. In a related development, President Donald Trump announced a delay on tariffs for goods from Mexico and Canada, which fall under the North American trade agreement known as USMCA. In labor statistics, initial jobless claims in the US experienced a decline last week, falling to 221,000 from the previous week’s figure of 242,000.
This reduction was contrary to expectations, which anticipated a smaller decrease to 233,000, as indicated by a Bloomberg survey. In the corporate sphere, Oracle's shares tumbled by 6.6%, following reports from Bloomberg that the company, in collaboration with Microsoft-backed OpenAI, is set to populate their new Texas data center with tens of thousands of artificial intelligence chips sourced from Nvidia in the coming months. Amazon shares also declined by 3.7%.
Amazon Web Services launched GameLift Streams, a new platform feature aimed at allowing developers to stream games across nearly all browser-enabled devices. In a brighter development, Kestra Medical Technologies celebrated a striking debut on the Nasdaq, with its stock soaring 28% after successfully pricing its initial public offering at $17 per share for a total of 11.9 million shares. Conversely, Plus Therapeutics saw its shares quadruple in value following the US Food and Drug Administration’s decision to grant orphan drug designation to its Rhenium obisbemeda radiotherapy, which is being developed for treating leptomeningeal metastases in lung cancer patients. On the commodities front, gold experienced a slight decline of 0.1%, trading at $2,923.9 per troy ounce, while silver saw a modest increase of 0.2%, standing at $33.22 per troy ounce..