U.S. stocks close lower amid downbeat data

New York: US stocks ended lower, as Wall Street digested a batch of tepid data, including the lackluster US GDP growth for the second quarter (Q2), and a fresh whistleblower complaint against US President Donald Trump.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 79.59 points, or 0.30 per cent, to 26,891.12. The S&P 500 decreased 7.25 points, or 0.24 per cent, to 2,977.62. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 46.72 points, or 0.58 per cent, to 8,030.66, Xinhua news agency reported on Thursday.

Six of the 11 primary S&P 500 sectors traded lower around market close, with the energy sector down 1.24 per cent, leading the losers.

On the economic front, US initial jobless claims increased 3,000 to 213,000 in the week ending September 21 on a weekly basis, the Labor Department said Thursday.

The 4-week moving average reached 212,000, a decrease of 750 from the previous week’s revised average.

US real gross domestic product (GDP) rose at an annual rate of 2 per cent in Q2, according to the third estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis on Thursday.

The growth came sharply down from the 3.1 per cent pace in the first quarter, amid downward revisions to imports, a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, personal consumption expenditures (PCE) and nonresidential fixed investment.

Yet upward revisions to state and local government spending and exports helped offset those downward revisions.

US congressional panel on Thursday released a declassified version of a whistleblower complaint about President Donald Trump’s interactions with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky.