U.S. stocks lower with caution ahead of inauguration

Investing.com – Wall Street traded with slight losses on Thursday as investors waded through a downpour of references and appeared to take caution ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration the following day.

At 11:47AM ET (16:47GMT), the Dow Jones dropped 28 points, or 0.15%, the S&P 500 lost 3 points, or 0.12%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite slipped 2 points, or 0.03%.

Trump will be sworn in as the 45th President of the United States at 12:00PM ET (17:00GMT) on Friday in Washington, D.C.

Investors await any detail he may give on his promises of tax reform, infrastructure spending and deregulation, as well as insight regarding policies on China and the domestic economy with expectations high that his first day of office will involve the signing of several executive orders to undo prior regulations brought in by the previous administration.

On Thursday’s economic front, data was mostly positive as weekly jobless claims came in under forecasts and the Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index blew past forecasts in January with a surprise increase

Housing starts surged in December, bolstering optimism over the state of the U.S. real estate market, though building permits disappointed with an unexpected decline.

Still ahead, Federal Reserve (Fed) chair Janet Yellen will speak again Thursday evening at 8:00PM ET (01:00GMT Friday) on the economic outlook and monetary policy at Stanford University.

In remarks delivered to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on Wednesday, Yellen said it would "makes sense" for the U.S. central bank to gradually lift interest rates with the U.S. economy close to full employment and inflation headed toward the Fed's 2% goal.

The Fed chief said that she and other Fed policymakers expected the central bank to lift its key benchmark short-term rate "a few times a year" through 2019. That pace could change depending on how the outlook for the economy develops, Yellen cautioned.

In company news, shares in CSX (NASDAQ:CSX) skyrocketed 18% as Canadian Pacific Railway chief exec Hunter Harrison stepped down and The Wall Street Journal reported that he would be involved in an attempt to take over the American railroad company.

Rumors from Dealreporter that General Electric (NYSE:GE) was considering a takeover of 3D Systems Corporation (NYSE:DDD) sent shares in the printer manufacturer up more than 5%.

In big moves on earnings, Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) soared nearly 6% as the streaming video pioneer confirmed adding over a third more subscribers than expected in the last quarter of 2016.

Get The News You Want

Read market moving news with a personalized feed of stocks you care about.

Get The App

Check Point Software Technologies (NASDAQ:CHKP) jumped nearly 7% as the network security company smashed profit forecasts.

Dow components IBM (NYSE:IBM) and American Express (NYSE:AXP) will release earnings after Thursday’s market close.

Meanwhile, oil prices pared gains after the U.S. Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report that crude oil inventories jumped by 2.347 million barrels in the week ended January 13.

Market analysts' had expected a crude-stock draw of 0.342 million barrels, while the American Petroleum Institute late Wednesday reported a supply drop of 5.04 million barrels.

That came after the monthly oil market report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) showed that world oil markets are slowly tightening as demand rises, sending crude prices more than 1% higher.

Commercial oil inventories in the major industrialized countries fell for a fourth consecutive month in November, the IEA said, although they remained more than 300 million barrels above the five-year average.

The IEA said output cuts announced by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and 11 non-OPEC producers in November had "entered their probation period" and that it was too early to see what level of compliance had been achieved.

A monitoring committee charged with tracking adherence to the global deal is due to meet in Vienna for the first time on January 22.

U.S. crude futures gained 0.78% to $51.48 by 11:52AM ET (17:52GMT), while Brent oil advanced 0.83% to $54.37.

Elsewhere, European shares closed mixed as the euro zone’s monetary authority left interest rates and policy unchanged. European Central Bank (ECB) president Mario Draghi maintained a dovish stance and indicated that he saw no convincing upward trend in core inflation.