US stocks fall on stubbornly high jobless claims
- The figure was below last week's claims, but above analyst expectations.
NEW YORK: Wall Street stocks opened lower Thursday as the US continued to see large number of fresh jobless claims and as markets weighed mixed trends in the country's battle against coronavirus.
Another 1.5 million US workers filed for unemployment benefits last week, the Labor Department said, bringing the number of people laid off, at least temporarily, by COVID-19 to 45.7 million.
The figure was below last week's claims, but above analyst expectations.
Sentiment has also been dented by data showing increased COVID-19 cases in Florida, Texas and other states as well as isolated instances in which hospitals are near full capacity.
About 10 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.7 percent to 25,941.30.
The broad-based S&P 500 dropped 0.4 percent to 3,102.70, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index was down a hair at 9,909.73.
Among individual companies, Carnival fell 5.1 percent as it reported a quarterly loss of $4.4 billion and said it is "unable to definitely predict when it will return to normal operations" following coronavirus restrictions on cruise companies.
Kroger fell 4.1 percent despite reporting a 57 percent jump in quarterly profits to $1.2 billion, but declined to lift its full-year forecast due to the uncertainty in the wake of COVID-19.
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