Stocks opened modestly higher Thursday but two of the three indexes were in the red by lunchtime as mega-cap chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA) swung lower.
Starting with today's economic news. Data from the Labor Department showed that initial jobless claims fell by 5,000 last week to 238,00, more than economists expected.
Separately, the Census Bureau said housing starts fell 5.5% in May to 1.277 million units, the lowest level since June 2020. Building permits, which are an indicator of future construction, also fell to a nearly four-year low, sinking 3.8% to 1.386 million.
"Economic indicators for the second quarter largely point to another slow quarter of economic activity, including weak retail sales, housing starts and building permits," says Bill Adams, chief economist for Comerica Bank. The soft economic activity and labor market data reinforce expectations for the Fed to begin cutting interest rates in a few months, he adds.
Kroger drops despite earnings beat
Checking out the earnings calendar, Kroger (KR) fell 3.3% after the grocery chain's CEO said he expects customers to continue "managing economic uncertainty" in the near term. Still, the company beat on the top and bottom lines for its fiscal first quarter.
Aron Bohlig, managing partner at ComCap, a boutique investment bank that works with several consumer-facing businesses, says this beat is partially due to Kroger's "significant investments in retail media which drive personalized advertisements at the point of decision," as well as its focus on supply chain optimization.
"The impact of these initiatives can be hard to project on a quarterly basis, but we are optimistic that they'll have more upside surprises for the next year or two," Bohlig adds.
Darden hikes its dividend again
Elsewhere, Darden Restaurants (DRI) rose 1.5% after the Olive Garden parent reported higher-than-expected fiscal fourth-quarter earnings, even as revenue fell just shy of estimates. The company also hiked its quarterly dividend by 6.9%, the fourth straight year it has done so.
Nvidia pulls back
Meanwhile, Nvidia was up more than 3% in intraday trading Thursday on news the chipmaker's partners Dell Technologies (DELL, -0.4%) and Super Micro Computer (SMCI, -0.3%) received server orders for Elon Musk's artificial intelligence (AI) startup xAI. However, NVDA shares finished the session down 3.5%.
Nvidia temporarily surpassed Microsoft (MSFT, -0.1%) earlier this week to become the most valuable publicly traded company in the world. However, thanks to today's downside, MSFT is once again in the top spot with a market cap of $3.31 trillion vs NVDA's $3.22 trillion.
Nvidia's weakness weighed on two of the three main indexes, with the Nasdaq Composite finishing the day down 0.8% at 17,721 and the S&P 500 slipping 0.3% to 5,473. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 0.8% at 39,134 on strength in Salesforce (CRM, +4.3%).
