FXStreet (Mumbai) – The US stocks turned lower on the first trading day of the month after the data in the US showed the weekly jobless claims spiked last week and the manufacturing activity cooled in September.
At the time of writing, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) was down 17 points. The S&P 500 index traded flat, while the Nasdaq was down 13 points. The Stoxx Europe 600 erased earlier gains, falling 0.1%.
On the data front, Initial jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, rose by 10,000 to 277,000 in the week ended Sept. 26. The Markit manufacturing PMI stayed near 22-month low in September, while the ISM manufacturing dropped to 50.2 in September, with the pace of the new orders falling to the lowest since November 2012.
Earlier today, the manufacturing data in the Eurozone and the UK showed the pace of expansion slowed slightly in September. China’s official manufacturing purchasing managers index ticked up slightly to 49.8 in September, although it is too early to speculate that the activity has bottomed out.
(Market News Provided by FXstreet)