Inkhabar webdesk

By Noel Randewich (Reuters) -Wall Street closed lower on Thursday, with signs of weakness in regional banks spooking investors already on edge over U.S.-China trade tensions. Shares of Zions Bancorporation tumbled 13% after the regional bank disclosed an unexpected loss on two loans in its California division, adding to growing investor unease about hidden credit stress as lenders navigate economic uncertainty with interest rates still relatively high. Western Alliance slumped 10.8% after it said it initiated a fraud lawsuit against one of its borrowers. Jitters about commercial lending emerged following the September collapses of U.S. auto parts supplier First Brands and car dealership Tricolor. "I think that there's some level of minimal nervousness associated with the credit markets," said Ron Albahary, chief investment officer at LNW in Philadelphia. "If you've been doing this long enough, you don't ignore anything that might be a yellow flag in the credit markets."  With the S&P 500 recently at record highs, investors were also watching for developments between Washington and Beijing after their trade war escalated last week. U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened 100% tariffs on China starting November 1, as well as other new trade measures against the world's second-largest economy following Chinese curbs on exports of rare earth minerals. "With the added uncertainty of U.S. and China trade and increased rhetoric and what that could mean for the economy and for the markets, I think that's adding to market instability," said Tom Hainlin, an investment strategist at U.S. Bank Wealth Management in Minneapolis.  TSMC, the world's largest manufacturer of advanced semiconductors, gave a bullish outlook for spending on artificial intelligence. Still, heavyweight AI-related stocks dipped, with Palantir and Meta Platforms both off 0.8%, and Tesla losing 1.5% . Salesforce jumped 4% after the business software seller forecast revenue of more than $60 billion for 2030, above Wall Street estimates. Optimism about AI and expectations of U.S. interest rate cuts have lifted Wall Street to record highs this year. The S&P 500 has gained 12% so far in 2025, and it is valued at an elevated 23 times expected earnings, a five-year high, according to LSEG.  Robust earnings from major U.S. banks this week offered fresh signs of economic resilience at a time when official macroeconomic reports remain delayed due to an ongoing government shutdown.  Analysts on average see S&P 500 aggregate earnings up 9.2% in the third quarter, versus expectations of an 8.8% increase two weeks ago, according to LSEG I/B/E/S. The S&P 500 insurance index dropped after industry bellwether Travelers Companies posted quarterly revenue below estimates, with its stock falling nearly 3%. Insurer Marsh & McLennan reported flat operating margins and slowing growth in its risk and insurance business, and its stock dropped 8.5%. The S&P 500 declined 0.63% to end the session at 6,629.07 points.     The Nasdaq declined 0.47% to 22,562.54 points, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.65% to 45,952.24 points. Ten of the 11 S&P 500 sector indexes declined, led lower by financials, down 2.75%, followed by a 1.12% loss in energy. Data showed the Philadelphia Fed Business Index for October declined 12.8 points, compared with a rise of 8.5 estimated by the economists polled by Reuters. Fed Governor Christopher Waller said he supported an additional interest rate cut in October due to mixed readings on the state of the job market. Hewlett Packard Enterprise slumped 10% after the technology company forecast annual profit and revenue below Wall Street expectations. J.B. Hunt shares jumped 22% after the trucking firm reported third-quarter profits. Declining stocks outnumbered rising ones within the S&P 500 by a 2.7-to-one ratio. The S&P 500 posted 29 new highs and 16 new lows; the Nasdaq recorded 113 new highs and 109 new lows. Volume on U.S. exchanges was relatively heavy, with 22.4 billion shares traded, compared to an average of 20.5 billion shares over the previous 20 sessions. (Reporting by Sukriti Gupta and Twesha Dikshit in Bengaluru, and by Noel Randewich in San Francisco. Editing by Maju Samuel and David Gregorio)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)

By Lucia Mutikani WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The number of Americans filing new applications for jobless benefits fell last week, economists at JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs estimated on Thursday, but lackluster hiring has left many on unemployment rolls.    Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped to a seasonally adjusted 217,000 for the week ending October 11 from 235,000 the prior week, they calculated. A U.S. government shutdown, now in its third week due to a political standoff between Republicans and Democrats in Washington, has halted the collection, processing and publishing of official economic data. States have, however, continued to collect the claims data and submit it to the Labor Department's database, which remains accessible. Economists have been using the unadjusted claims data to make estimates using seasonal adjustment factors that the government published earlier this year. Claims data was unavailable for Arizona, Massachusetts, Nevada and Tennessee.  "Our estimates assume that initial claims for Tennessee, Massachusetts, Arizona and Nevada – which didn't appear in today's DOL data – were in line with the latest published numbers," Goldman Sachs said in a note. "We obtain a range between 211,000 and 225,000 using the lowest and highest levels for claims in these states this year." The Labor Department follows a similar practice to make estimates for states that are unable to provide data on time. "The latest jobless claims look quite decent, and suggest layoffs remain low with movement in the unemployment rate," said Abiel Reinhart, an economist at JPMorgan.  Claims data have become a key for Federal Reserve officials trying to assess the health of the labor market ahead of their October 28-29 policy meeting. BOTH LAYOFFS AND HIRING REMAIN LOW Fed Chair Jerome Powell said this week "available evidence suggests that both layoffs and hiring remain low, and that both households' perceptions of job availability and firms' perceptions of hiring difficulty continue their downward trajectories." Unemployment claims have remained within their pre-government shutdown range. They have not shown large spikes, despite the shutdown pushing thousands of federal contractors out of work.  Federal workers, hundreds of thousands of whom have been furloughed, file for claims under a separate program. Data for the program was not immediately available.  The labor market remains stuck in a "no hire" and "no fire" state, economists say. The U.S. central bank's Beige Book report on Wednesday described demand for labor as "generally muted" in recent weeks.     A Bank of America Institute survey on Thursday found signs of a slowdown in the small business labor market. Its alternative hiring indicator based on Bank of America small business payments data decreased in September. It also noted business applications with planned wages, viewed as a signal of real job creation, have dropped below pre-pandemic norms.   Small businesses have been the main driver of job growth. Economists say President Donald Trump's trade and immigration policies, and the growing popularity of artificial intelligence have cut demand for workers and labor supply. The number of people receiving unemployment benefits after an initial week of aid, a proxy for hiring, was unchanged at a seasonally adjusted 1.927 million during the week ending October 4, JPMorgan estimated. Goldman Sachs put its estimate of these so-called continuing claims at 1.917 million.  The unemployment rate increased to nearly a four-year high of 4.3% in August, and the elevated continuing claims suggest no improvement. (Reporting By Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Jamie Freed)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)

By Doyinsola Oladipo NEW YORK (Reuters) -Spirit Airlines on Thursday said it will furlough 365 pilots and downgrade the status of up to 170 pilots in the first quarter of 2026 as it makes larger cuts to its workforce as part of its restructuring efforts. After filing for bankruptcy in August for the second time in a year, the ultra-low-cost airline told the union representing its pilots that it wants to cut $100 million in annual spending on pilots to conserve cash. "As part of our ongoing restructuring, we are taking additional steps to align staffing across our organization with our previously announced capacity reduction and smaller operating fleet size," the company said in a statement.  With voluntary attrition, the estimated furloughs are likely to decrease over the next several weeks, Spirit COO John Bendoraitis told employees in a memo seen by Reuters. The company will open the bid at the end of November.     Spirit said it currently has about 2,400 pilots. The airline previously furloughed about 330 pilots and plans to furlough another 270 in November. It has also decided to furlough approximately 1,800 flight attendants, about one-third of its cabin crew, effective December 1. The Florida-based airline said there will also be reductions across its corporate teams and it plans to make volume-based staffing adjustments across its maintenance stations. The carrier will close its maintenance stations and warehouse operations in Baltimore and Chicago effective January 1, 2026. Spirit said in a filing that the furloughs are expected to save the company $211 million. Spirit estimated it would incur losses of $804 million in 2025. It said its transformation plan to return to profitability in 2027 requires it to reduce its network in 2026.  (Reporting by Doyinsola Oladipo in New York and Rajesh Kumar Singh in Chicago; editing by Diane Craft, Deepa Babington and David Gregorio)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)