Wall Street close: Stocks bleeding on mixed data and sentiment

• S&P 500  -11.59 (-0.36%) to 3,214.97.
• Dow  -138.90 (-0.52%) to 26,731.20.
• Nasdaq -84.76 (-0.80%) to 10,465.73.

US stocks were on the back foot on Thursday, while investors digested a deluge of earnings as well as the labour market data.

At the same time, investors continue to look for clues as to when a slowdown in the US epidemic might emerge.

The Asian session led the way, souring on a mixed data flow reaffirmed that the road to recovery may be a long and winding one.

In Us equities, most of the damage started in a pullback in the technology sectors.

As for earnings, the Bank of America (BofA) and Morgan Stanley (MS) reports for their Q2 earnings were mixed.

BofA saw the pandemic cut its profit in half, while Morgan posted a record quarter on booming fixed-income trading.

Meanwhile, as for the ongoing economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic, this was portrayed through the Labor Department’s weekly jobless claims which had revealed that another 1.3 million workers filed unemployment claims, worse than consensus economists had forecast.

On the positive side, US Retail Sales skyrocketed by 7.5% last month smashing the expected 5%.

"But these data were treated largely as ‘old news’ given virus developments. Nonetheless, the rise took the level of spending back to pre-lockdown levels. The sustainability of this rebound will be determined to a large degree by whether another fiscal deal is reached," analysts at ANZ Bank explained. 

In related markets, we had 10-year Treasury (^TNX) -1.8 bps to yield 0.6120%, Crude -$0.48 (-1.17%) to $40.72 a barrel and Gold -$17.50 (-0.96%) to $1,796.30 per ounce.

S&P 500 levels