Stocks fall as Powell, Bank of England lead hawkish tone: Stock market news today

• 25 minutes ago

  Josh Schafer

  Jobless claims remain highest since October 2021

  New data from the Department of Labor on Thursday revealed 264,000 jobless claims were filed in the week ending June 17. That matches the revised number of claims from the week prior and now has the four-week moving average of jobless claims trending higher.

  

  The numbers suggest further potential softening in the labor market, but some economists aren’t quite ready to call it a trend.

  "Three straight readings above 260K are not conclusive evidence of a real shift in the trend, especially given the uncertainty over potentially large numbers of fraudulent claims, and the unreliability of the seasonals,” Pantheon Macroeconomics chief economist Ian Shepherdson wrote in a note on Thursday.

  Jobless claim increases had been in focus in recent months after fraudulent claims in Massachusetts boosted data.

• 1 hour ago

  Dani Romero

  Competition heats up amid record-low homes for sale in May

  A shortage of listings in May drove up sales for the month, but record-low housing stock sidelined other potential buyers.

  Homeowners remain reluctant to sell with mortgage rates elevated. Sales of previously owned homes edged up 0.2% in May from the month before to an annualized rate of 4.30 million, data from the National Association of Realtors out Thursday showed. That's still down 20.4% from a year ago yet exceeded the 4.25 million expected by economists, per Bloomberg data.

  The lack of inventory has stirred up competition for those actively looking to buy a home. The number of homes on the market gained in May, but it was the lowest inventory count on record for the month, NAR said.

  “Available inventory strongly impacts home sales, too,” NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said in a statement. “Newly constructed homes are selling at a pace reminiscent of pre-pandemic times because of abundant inventory in that sector. However, existing-home sales activity is down sizably due to the current supply being roughly half the level of 2019.”

  The number of homes listed for sale climbed in May to 1.08 million units, up 3.8% from April’s figure but down 6.1% from a year ago, NAR reported. That’s below the pre-pandemic norm of 1.9 million homes for sale in the month of May, Yun said in a call.

• 2 hours ago

  Josh Schafer

  Overstock buys Bed Bath & Beyond IP

  Bed Bath and Beyond (BBBY) will live on in name but not in physical stores, according to a Thursday court filing. The embattled retailer has agreed to sell its intellectual property assets to Overstock.com (OSTK) for $21.5 million.

  Overstock will pay for Bed Bath & Beyond's brand name, business data, and digital assets. The move comes nearly two months after Bed Bath & Beyond filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection following a years-long decline in sales that doomed the home goods retailer.

  Bed Bath's physical retail stores are not slated to remain open under the agreement.

  The $21.5 million for parts of Bed Bath & Beyond's business is a far cry from the company's all-time high market cap of more than $16 billion in 2013. And early reaction from investors seems to be that Overstock.com found a good deal.

  Overstock’s stock was up nearly 10% on the news during Thursday’s trading session.

• 2 hours ago

  Josh Schafer

  Stocks open lower

  Stocks opened lower on Thursday as investors awaited a second day of testimony on Capitol Hill from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and digested weekly jobless claims data that suggested some further softening in the US labor market.

  At the market open the S&P 500 (^GSPC) fell 0.26%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) dropped 55 points, or 0.16%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) slipped 0.21%.

• 4 hours ago

  Karen Friar

  Bank of England hikes rates to 5% in surprise move

  The BOE raised interest rates by half a percentage point to 5% on Thursday, bringing in a bigger hike than expected after a shock inflation reading this week.

  The move, the central bank's 13th hike in a row, takes rates to a 15-year high and signals British policymakers don't believe they've finished the job on combating persistently rising prices.

  That message echoes the comments made by Fed Chair Jerome Powell in Congress yesterday, when he said getting US inflation back down to the bank's 2% target "still has a long way to go." Powell is due to give more testimony Thursday.

  And the same thing was heard from central banks elsewhere earlier Thursday, when Norway raised rates to their highest since 2002, and Switzerland's hike took its key rate to15-year high.

  US futures deepened earlier losses, with those on the S&P 500 (^GSPC) down about 0.30%. Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) futures fell 110 points, or 0.32%. Futures on the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) were slightly lower, down 0.36%.

• 5 hours ago

  Karen Friar

  Stock futures fall with Powell due to resume testimony

  Stocks were setting up for a lower open Thursday, ahead of Fed Chair Jerome Powell's second day of testimony to Congress.

  Futures on the S&P 500 (^GSPC) were down about 0.25%, while those on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) dropped about 70 points, or 0.21% Futures on the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) fell 0.34%.

  Techs led declines on the benchmarks' third losing day in a row on Wednesday, as Powell's hint of more rate hikes to come in his comments to lawmakers cooled hopes for an end to the tightening.