US close: Major indices down as Meta weighs on stocks

(Sharecast News) - Major indices closed lower on Thursday as Meta Platforms joined Alphabet in underwhelming the market with its quarterly earnings. At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.76% at 32,784.30, while the S&P 500 was 1.18% lower at 4,137.23 and the Nasdaq Composite saw out the session 1.76% weaker at 12,595.61.

The Dow closed 251.63 points lower after Facebook and Instagram owner Meta beat analysts' forecasts but failed to impress with its fourth-quarter guidance and worrying investors with comments about a "softening" ad market.

Meanwhile, the latest batch of economic data was also somewhat mixed when looking at the details of the reports, with US GDP growth hitting an annualised pace of 4.9% during the third quarter, as household spending leapt higher - ahead of consensus estimates for a print of 4.0% and up from 0.8% over the previous three months.

Furthermore, the core PCE price deflator slowed to 2.4% (consensus: 2.5%), its slowest pace of gains since the last quarter of 2019.

However, Ian Shepherdson at Pantheon Macroeconomics said such strength in consumption could not be sustained and was anticipating flat GDP growth in the fourth quarter.

On another note, first time claimes for unemployment increased last week, with initial weekly jobless claims meanwhile rising by 10,000 to 210,000, as expected, according to the Labor Department.

Elsewhere, durable goods orders surged by 4.7% month-on-month in September, but that was entirely the result - and more - of a near doubling in the often volatile category of orders for civilian aircraft.

On Friday, the much-anticipated personal consumption expenditures index - the Fed's preferred measure of inflation - was forecast to show that core inflation slowed to an annual rate of 3.7% in September from 3.9% in August.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com