NEW YORK: Wall Street stocks dipped early Thursday as markets weighed mixed labor market data and looked ahead to next week’s Federal Reserve meeting.
On the positive side, US data showed a drop of 27,000 in a weekly report of initial jobless claims.
But a separate report by the executive placement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas showed a jump in job cuts in November, lifting the 2025 total to the highest level since 2020.
About 45 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.1 percent at 47,833.53.
The broad-based S&P 500 also lost 0.1 percent at 6,843.05, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index shed 0.2 percent to 23,405.71.
S&P 500 gains on Fed rate cut expectations, offsetting Microsoft slip
The reports come ahead of next week’s Fed gathering at which policy makers are expected to enact an interest rate cut for the third straight meeting.
Fed officials have cited increased worries about the job market as the impetus for the pivot away from keeping rates higher to counter inflation.
Among individual companies, Meta shot up four percent following a report it plans to slash spending on the “metaverse” augmented reality venture.
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