Wall Street Slips as Strong Economic Data Pushes Yields Higher; Oracle Tumbles, Airlines Weaken

U.S. stocks fell with the Nasdaq down 113 pts and Dow off 174 as jobless claims dropped and GDP was revised higher. Oracle slid 5.6%, airlines and pharma stocks dropped while gold stocks gained. Treasury yields rose on upbeat economic data.

The Nasdaq slid 113.16 points (0.5%) to 22,384.70, the S&P 500 declined 33.25 points (0.5%) to 6,604.72 and the Dow fell 173.96 points (0.4%) to 45,947.32.

AI player Oracle (ORCL) plunged by 5.6% on the day, although shares of Nvidia (NVDA) saw modest strength after moving notably lower over the two previous sessions.

Labor Department released a report unexpectedly showing an extended pullback by first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits in the week ended September 20th. It also mentioned that initial jobless claims fell to 218,000, a decrease of 14,000 from the previous week's revised level of 232,000. The Commerce Department also released separate reports showing an unexpected surge by durable goods orders in August as well as much stronger than previously estimated GDP growth in the second quarter. It is scheduled to release its report on personal income and spending in August, which includes the Fed's preferred readings on consumer price inflation.

Airline stocks moved sharply lower over the course of the session, with the NYSE Arca Airline Index tumbling by 2.9% to its lowest closing level in over a month. Pharmaceutical stocks were significantly weak, as reflected by the 2% slump by the NYSE Arca Pharmaceutical Index. Biotechnology, healthcare and computer hardware stocks too became considerably weak while gold stocks bucked the downtrend amid an uptick by the price of the precious metal.

Asia-Pacific stocks closed narrowly mixed. Japan's Nikkei 225 Index rose by 0.3% while China's Shanghai Composite Index closed just below the unchanged line and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index edged down by 0.1%. the major European markets all moved downwards while the German DAX Index slid by 0.6%, the French CAC 40 Index and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index both fell by 0.4%.

In the bond market, treasuries are seeing continued weakness following the upbeat U.S. economic data. As a result, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note which moves opposite of its price, rose 2.5 bps to 4.17%.

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