NEW YORK — The huge rally for U.S. stocks lost momentum on Thursday as Wall Street counted down to a big jobs report that’s coming on Friday. The crypto market had more action, and bitcoin briefly burst to a record above $100,000 before pulling back.
The S&P 500 slipped 0.2% from the all-time high it had set the day before, its 56th of the year so far, to shave a bit off what’s set to be one of its best years of the millennium. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 248 points, or 0.6%, while the Nasdaq composite slipped 0.2% from its own record set the day before.
Bitcoin powered above $100,000 for the first time the night before, after President-elect Donald Trump chose Paul Atkins, who’s seen as a crypto advocate, as his nominee to head the Securities and Exchange Commission. The cryptocurrency has climbed dramatically from less than $70,000 on Election Day, but it fell back as Thursday progressed toward $99,000, according to CoinDesk.
Sharp swings for bitcoin are nothing new, and they took stocks of companies enmeshed in the crypto world on a similar ride. After rising as much as 9% in early trading, MicroStrategy, a company that’s been raising cash just to buy bitcoin, swung to a loss of 4.8%. Crypto exchange Coinbase Global fell 3.1% after likewise erasing a big early gain.
Elsewhere on Wall Street, stocks of airlines helped lead the way after the latest bumps up to financial forecasts from carriers.
Shares of American Airlines Group soared 16.8% after saying it’s making more in revenue during the last three months of 2024 than it expected, and it will likely make a bigger profit than it had earlier forecast. The airline also chose Citi to be its exclusive partner for credit cards that give miles in its loyalty program. That should help its cash coming in from co-branded credit card and other partners grow by about 10% annually.
Southwest Airlines shares climbed 2% after saying it’s seeing stronger demand from leisure travelers than it expected. It also raised its forecast for revenue for the Christmas season.
On the losing end of Wall Street was Synposys, which tumbled 12.4%. The supplier for the semiconductor industry reported better profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected, but it also warned of “continued macro uncertainties” and gave a forecast for revenue in the current quarter that fell short of some analysts’ estimates.
American Eagle Outfitters shares fell even more, 14.3%, after the retailer said it’s preparing for “potential choppiness” outside of peak selling periods. It was reminiscent of a warning from Foot Locker earlier in the week and raised more concerns about how resilient U.S. shoppers can remain.
Solid spending by U.S. consumers has been one of the main reasons the economy has avoided a recession that earlier seemed inevitable after the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates to crush inflation. But shoppers are now contending with still-high prices and a slowing job market.
This week’s highlight for Wall Street will be the jobs report from the U.S. government, which will show how many people employers hired and fired last month. A report on Thursday said the number of U.S. workers applying for unemployment benefits rose last week but remains at historically healthy levels.
Expectations are high that the Fed will cut its main interest rate again when it meets in two weeks. The Fed began easing its main interest rate from a two-decade high in September, hoping to offer more support for the job market.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury edged down from 4.18% late Wednesday to 4.17%.
The S&P 500 fell 11.38 points to 6,075.11. The Dow sank 248.33 to 44,765.71, and the Nasdaq composite lost 34.86 to 19,700.26.
Information for this article was contributed by Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott of The Associated Press.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/adn/35TQDPQPYNGNPFBNNKRRKJSAU4.jpg "Torpedo juice: The legendary illegal World War II liquor drunk In Alaska and across the world")
