By Yasin Ebrahim
Investing.com – Wall Street moved off session lows Thursday, as tech continued to rack up gains, though upside was limited by weaker-than-expected data that exacerbated concerns about the strength of the economic recovery.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.06%, or 15 points. The S&P 500 rose 0.09%, while the Nasdaq Composite added 0.56%.
U.S. weekly jobless claims unexpectedly increased to 1.106 million last week, from 923,000 the prior week, and above forecasts for 925,000.
The rise in claims comes after $600-a-week government stimulus checks lapsed as lawmakers struggled to agree on another wave of fiscal stimulus.
"It seemed that the expiration of the $600 enhanced benefit provided by the CARES Act had coincided with a fundamental improvement in the labor market and economy, especially in the states that had suffered from a surge in COVID cases earlier in the summer," Jefferies (NYSE:JEF) said.
Other sectors of the economy also flagged weakness as the Philadelphia Fed reported that its manufacturing index fell to a reading of 17.2 this month from 24.1 the prior month.
The duo of sluggish economic reports added to the worries about the economy just a day after the Federal Reserve's minutes showed policymakers were uncertain about the strength of the economic recovery amid the ongoing impact from the coronavirus pandemic.
Against the backdrop of wobbles in the recovery, value stocks – those that tend to outperform during periods of economic strength – faltered, with energy and materials leading to the downside.
But big tech continued to rack up gains to keep losses in the broader market in check.
Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), which collectively make up about 20% of the S&P 500, were higher.
Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA), meanwhile, cut its losses to trade above the flatline after reporting better-than-expected quarterly earnings and guidance.
"The company (NVDA) provided a solid FQ3 outlook with revenue expectations of $4.4B, well above our prior $4.14B outlook," Wedbush said as it upgraded its price target on the stock to $525 from $500.
Elsewhere, Estee Lauder (NYSE:EL) fell 8% after swinging to a loss in the fiscal fourth quarter as sales slumped by nearly a third, pressured by lower demand for makeup during the lockdown.
In other news, LYFT (NASDAQ:LYFT) fell nearly 4% after confirming in a blog post that it would be suspending its ride-sharing operations in California at midnight because of a potentially costly state law requiring it to classify drivers as employees.