NEW YORK (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 31st July, 2020) Wall Street closed modestly lower on Thursday as the outperformance of technology stocks helped the market avoid a potential bloodbath from the historic plunge in the US economy for the second quarter.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index closed up 0.4 percent on the day at 10,588 on expectations of strong second-quarter earnings at big tech Names like Amazon, Apple, Google's Alphabet and Facebook. The Nasdaq's strong performance through July, accentuated by a string of record highs, put it on track to a gain of more than 5 percent for the month, following through with the 31 percent rise in the second quarter.
Thursday's rally on the Nasdaq also helped the broader US stock market stave off a bigger decline, after the near 33 percent decline in gross domestic product (GDP) reported by the Commerce Department for the second quarter. It was the biggest GDP contraction ever, a magnitude not seen since the Great Depression of the 1920s.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, the broadest stock indicator on the New York Stock Exchange, closed the day down 0.8 percent at 26,316. Earlier in the session, the Dow fell to a session low of 25,992, before pulling back from that bottom on the strength in the Nasdaq.
The S&P 500, a barometer for the top 500 US stocks, closed down 0.3 percent at 3,247.
