U.S. stocks closed lower Thursday, despite fresh Commerce Department data that showed jobless claims falling to their lowest levels since September. Claims are up from lows reached early last year, but are near pre-pandemic levels when the job market was also tight. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 252 points. The Nasdaq fell 0.96% and the S&P 500 lost 0.76%. U.S. corporations seem increasingly pessimistic about growth over the months ahead. Discover Financial Services said Thursday more customers are falling behind on loan and credit card payments. Perhaps that explains a pullback in consumer spending reported by Procter & Gamble, given the rising cost of consumer staples. P&G shares fell 2.1% on the day. Our columnist Aaron Back noted a particularly gloomy tone from Chie
Shares of electric automaker Tesla slipped Thursday as broader markets finished lower, undoing some of their gains this year. The shares remain popular with individual investors, though their decline has made some question the path forward for the stock. On Friday at 1 p.m. ET, the Journal's Gunjan Banerji will sit down with investors Jim Chanos, a Tesla bear, and Ross Gerber, a bull, for a conversation about the case for and against the stock. You can watch that conversation here. The stock remains up about 3% in 2023 as, among other things, CEO Elon Musk is in the midst of an ongoing trial over the 2018 tweets he made about potentially taking the company private. @Daily_Discussion