The main US stock indexes finished trading mostly in the red

Major US stock indexes mostly fell on Thursday, responding to a series of unconvincing quarterly reports and mixed economic data for the US.

As it became known, the number of Americans applying for new unemployment benefits fell last week, remaining near historically low levels. Initial applications for unemployment benefits, an indicator of layoffs in all US states, fell by 1,000 to 230,000 people for the week ending January 27, the Ministry of Labor said. Economists were expecting 238,000 new applications last week.

However, employee productivity in the US unexpectedly fell in the fourth quarter, the first decline since early 2016 and evidence that it will be difficult to increase annual economic growth to 3% on a sustainable basis. The Ministry of Labor reported on Thursday that labor productivity in the non-agricultural sector, which measures hourly output per employee, in October-December decreased by 0.1% year-on-year. This was the first drop and the weakest performance since the first quarter of 2016.

In addition, a report published by the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) showed: in January, activity in the US manufacturing sector weakened, but was better than economists' forecasts. The PMI index for the manufacturing sector in January was 59.1 points against 59.7 in December. Analysts had expected that the figure would drop to 58.8 points.

Components of the DOW index finished trading mixed (14 in positive territory, 16 in negative territory). Outsider shares were DowDuPont Inc. (DWDP, -2.60%). Exxon Mobil Corporation (XOM, + 2.18%) was the leader of growth.

Most S & P sectors recorded a decline. The utilities sector showed the greatest decrease (-1.4%). The base resources sector grew most (+ 0.3%).

At closing:

DJIA + 0.14% 26,186.71 +37.32

Nasdaq -0.35% 7.385.86 -25.62

S & P -0.06% 2,821.98 -1.83