- Personal Spending in US declined by 7.5% in March.
- Falling US Treasury bond yields weigh on financial shares on Thursday.
- Upbeat performance of Communication Services Index lifts Nasdaq higher.
Wall STreet’s main indexes started the day in the negative territory on Thursday but rising technology shares helped the Nasdaq Composite advance into the positive territory. As of writing, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 were down 0.95% and 0.8%, respectively, while the Nasdaq composite was gaining 0.23%.
Mood turns sour on dismal US data
Earlier in the day, the data published by the US Bureau of Economic Analysis showed Personal Spending in March fell by 7.5% and Personal Income declined by 2%. Moreover, the Department of Labor announced that 3.8 million American applied for the unemployment insurance in the week ending April 25th.
These figures seem to be weighing on the market sentiment with the CBOE Volatility Index rising more than 10% on the day.
Among the 11 major S&P 500 sectors, the Materials Index is down 1.8% as the worst performer. On the other hand, the Communication Services Index is up 0.35%.