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* Weekly jobless claims rise less than expected
* Walgreens drops after swinging to quarterly loss
* Indexes: Dow down 1.4%, S&P 500 down 0.6%, Nasdaq up 0.5%
(Updates close with volume, details)
By Caroline Valetkevitch
July 9 (Reuters) - The S&P 500 and Dow dropped on Thursday
as investors worried about another round of business shutdowns
to contain a surge in coronavirus cases and began to shift their
focus to earnings, while the Nasdaq hit another record closing
high.
The United States saw more than 60,000 new COVID-19
infections on Wednesday, setting a single-day global record
while Florida and Texas reported a record one-day increase in
deaths.
Investors also began to turn their focus to the
second-quarter earnings season, which shifts into higher gear
next week. S&P 500 companies are expected to post a more than
40% decline in year-over-year earnings, which would be the
biggest quarterly profit drop since the 2008 financial crisis,
based on IBES data from Refinitiv.
Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc shares dropped after it
reported a quarterly loss compared with a profit a year earlier,
hurt by non-cash impairment charges of $2 billion as COVID-19
disrupted business at its Boots UK division. Its
stock closed 7.8% lower.
"We're heading into earnings season, and you're seeing some
troubling trends," said Peter Tuz, president of Chase Investment
Counsel in Charlottesville, Virginia.
"I expect a lot of confusing numbers and guidance. COVID is
certainly not behind us in any way, shape or form, so maybe the
V gets elongated some," he said.
The Nasdaq registered its fifth record closing high in six
days, helped by gains in Amazon.com, Microsoft Corp
, Nvidia, Apple Inc. Also, Tesla
extended recent gains, ending up 2.1%.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 361.19 points,
or 1.39%, to 25,706.09, the S&P 500 lost 17.89 points, or
0.56%, to 3,152.05 and the Nasdaq Composite added 55.25
points, or 0.53%, to 10,547.75.
The benchmark S&P 500 is still up more than 40% from its
March 23 closing low.
Helping stocks early in the day was data showing the number
of Americans filing for jobless benefits dropped to a near
four-month low last week. A record 32.9 million people though
were collecting unemployment checks in the third week of June.
A batch of upbeat economic data including the record pace of
job additions in June has underscored that the stimulus-fueled
domestic economy was on the path to recovery.
In a bullish signal for near-term momentum, the benchmark
S&P 500's chart formed a "golden cross" pattern, in which its
50-day moving average vaulted above the 200-day moving average.
Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a
2.56-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 2.19-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
The S&P 500 posted 33 new 52-week highs and one new low; the
Nasdaq Composite recorded 117 new highs and 33 new lows.
Volume on U.S. exchanges was 10.73 billion shares, compared
with the 12.23 billion average for the full session over the
last 20 trading days.
(Additional reporting by Medha Singh and C Nivedita in
Bengaluru; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Maju Samuel)