Wall Street slips ahead of jobs data, defense stocks advance, Bloom Energy soars 16%
US stock indices edged lower on Thursday, as investors turned cautious amid mixed economic data and ahead of Friday’s crucial jobs report.
Official data showed the number of US workers applying for jobless claims rose last week.
In other reports, the US trade deficit unexpectedly shrank in October 2025.
Defense stocks advanced after President Donald Trump called for increasing US military spending to $1.5 trillion in 2027 from $901 billion in order to build the “Dream Military”.
On Wednesday, the president signed an executive order calling on the Pentagon to ensure future contracts with contractors contain a provision prohibiting their ability to buy back their own stock during a period of underperformance on US government contracts.
As of 9:35 a.m. Eastern Time, The S&P 500 slipped 0.2%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.2%, and the Nasdaq Composite was 0.4% lower.
At the open, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 145.9 points, or 0.30%, to 48,850.17. The S&P 500 fell 6.8 points, or 0.10%, to 6,914.11, while the Nasdaq Composite dropped 35.4 points, or 0.15%, to 23,548.884.
In the bond market, Treasury yields edged higher following mixed data on the US economy. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.18% from 4.15% late on Wednesday.
Key Stock Movers
Bloom Energy shares surged 16.3% after American Electric Power signed $2.65 billion deal for fuel cells.
Among defense stocks, Northrop Grumman soared 8.2%, Lockheed Martin climbed 8.8%, L3Harris Technologies jumped 8%, and Kratos Defense rallied 16%.
Technology stocks were among the worst-performers for the day. Nvidia , Apple, Microsoft, and Broadcom dropped between 1.1% and 2.1%.
Alphabet shares gained 0.7% after the Google-parent on Wednesday surpassed Apple in market capitalization for the first time since 2019 to become the second-largest US company.
Applied Digital stock jumped 13.3% after the data center operator reported second quarter revenue above Wall Street estimates.
Ford shares surged 3.6% after Piper Sandler raised rating on the automaker to “overweight” from “neutral”.
Crude Oil
Oil prices advanced on Thursday as investors assessed Venezuela developments and reports on the progress of proposed US sanctions legislation against countries doing business with Russia.
At 1417 GMT, Brent crude futures rose $1.21, or 2%, at $61.17 a barrel. US West Texas Intermediate crude added $1.10, or nearly 2%, to $57.09.
Venezuela is potentially sitting on the largest oil deposits in the world, and any increase in production could push further downward on prices, which have already been falling on expectations for plentiful supplies.
Both benchmarks fell more than 1% for a second day on Wednesday, with market participants expecting abundant global supply this year.
Bullion Market
Gold prices fell on Thursday as commodity index readjustments kept pressure on near term prices.
As of 09:39 a.m. ET (1439 GMT), spot gold fell 0.5% to $4,432.94 per ounce, US gold futures for February delivery lost 0.4% to $4,442.50.
Among other metals, spot silver lost 4.5% to $74.63 per ounce, platinum was down 3.7% at $2,221.44 per ounce, while palladium shed 2.6% to $1,718.25 per ounce.
