Investing.com – Wall Street traded lower on Thursday as earnings from blue chip firms and worries over U.S. President Donald Trump's ability to implement his economic policies after he disbanded two high-profile business advisory councils dampened investor sentiment.
At 11:33AM ET (15:33GMT), the Dow Jones fell 94 points, or 0.43%, the S&P 500 lost 14 points, or 0.57%, while the Nasdaq Composite traded down 49 points, or 0.78%.
Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) led the Dow lower with losses of nearly 4% after reporting quarterly revenue in its closely-watched security business that missed estimates.
Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT), down 2%, also put pressure on the blue-chip index after the world’s largest retailer reported lower quarterly margins.
Separately, markets were fidgety on Thursday as they continued to watch developments surrounding reactions to Trump’s response to violence at a white nationalist rally over the weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Trump returned to his Twitter account and launched another barrage of remarks over the “removal of our beautiful states and monuments”.
Stocks and gold registered volatile moves earlier on Thursday as rumors surfaced that Gary Cohn, Trump’s chief economic advisor and likely candidate to replace Janet Yellen at the head of the Federal Reserve, had resigned.
That came after reports that Cohn was “upset” and “disgusted” by Trump’s reaction to the Charlottesville incident, but the rumor was later debunked.
On the economic front, weekly jobless claims showed continued strength of the labor market, coming in better than forecasts.
The Philadelphia Fed manufacturing survey gave a better-than-expected reading in August, though industrial production missed the mark in July and manufacturing production unexpectedly declined.
Still ahead, investors will keep an eye on appearances from Dallas Fed president Robert Kaplan and Minneapolis Fed chief Neel Kashkari later in the session to see if they offer clues on the future path of Fed policy.
Meanwhile, oil prices were on the rise Thursday after reports that Genscape data showed a draw of more than one barrels at Cushing inventories, the key U.S. hub for delivery, in the week to August 15.
U.S. crude futures gained 0.43% to $46.98 by 11:34AM ET (15:34GMT), while Brent oil rose 1.05% to $50.80.