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* Weekly complaints for the unemployed fall
* All eyes on Biden’s press conference later that day
* Nike is slipping on social media following the statement in Xinjiang
* Futures off: Dow 0.45%, S&P 0.44%, Nasdaq 0.55% (Add comments; update prices)
March 25 (Reuters) – Major Wall Street indexes were expected to open lower on Thursday, dragged down by technology and banking stocks, while data showed unemployment claims fell last week as the labor market rebounded. continued to emerge from the coronavirus-induced recession.
The Department of Labor’s weekly report on unemployment claims, the most appropriate indicator of economic health, showed that initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell to 684,000 for the week ended March 20 from 781,000 in the previous week.
“Most investors have assumed that we will return to a much more normal economy after this summer,” said Rick Meckler, a partner at Cherry Lane Investments in New Vernon, New Jersey.
“I assume that today’s figures are not so significant if you consider that the economy can reopen completely later in the year.”
The technologically strong Nasdaq Composite fell this month as pink economic projections raised demand for undervalued stocks, including energy, mining and industrial companies, but raised fears of higher inflation and potential tax increase.
Speaking to Congress this week, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell expressed optimism about a strong US economic recovery, while Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said future tax increases would be needed to pay public investment.
President Joe Biden is expected to set a new target for US vaccinations against COVID-19 at his first official White House press conference, starting at 13:15 ET (1715 GMT). Next week, he is to unveil a multi-billion dollar infrastructure plan in Pittsburgh.
“It’s a story about two different markets right now and it depends on what the market wants to focus on,” said Faron Daugs, founder and CEO of Harrison Wallace Financial Group.
“It wants to focus on stimulus, increasing vaccinations and reopening savings or potential taxes, potentially increased regulation in certain sectors, extremely high spending and inflation.”
Economically sensitive banking stocks, including JPMorgan Chase & Co, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America, gave up early gains to fall between 0.3% and 0.7% in premarket trading.
Shares of heavy technology Facebook Inc., Google parent Alphabet Inc. and Twitter Inc. fell between 0.8% and 2.7% before their executives testified before Congress about extremism and misinformation about their services.
At 8:50 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 144 points, or 0.45%, S&P 500 e-minis were down 17 points or 0.44%, and e-minis The Nasdaq 100 fell 70.25 points or 0.55%.
Shares of Nike Inc. fell 5.7% as the sporting goods giant faced a Chinese social backlash over its comments on Xinjiang’s forced labor reports.
The US listed shares of Baidu Inc, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and JD.Com Inc were submitted after the US securities regulator adopted measures that would expel foreign companies from the stock exchange if they did not comply with US audit standards. (Reporting by Devik Jain in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur and Maju Samuel)