US stock exchanges decline after the release of statistics on the GDP

US stock exchanges are falling on Thursday after the release of statistics on GDP and the labor market.

In particular, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) fell by 0.14% to 31,918.08 points, the NASDAQ high-tech index – by 0.25% to 13564.49 points, and the S&P 500 broad market index – by 0. 22%, up to 3916.6 points.

Investors drew attention to the statistics on the US economy: in the IV quarter, the country's GDP, according to the second estimate, grew by 4.1% on an annualized basis (if the GDP grew at the same pace for four quarters in a row). The indicator turned out to be higher than the first estimate of growth by 4%, but worse than the forecast of growth from analysts at 4.2% in annual terms.

At the same time, the US Department of Commerce kept the estimate of the fall in GDP in 2020 at 3.5%.

Labor market statistics turned out to be better than expected: the number of initial applications for unemployment benefits in the United States fell to a minimum since November 2020, and the rate of decline in the indicator became the fastest since August of the same year. The number of such applications decreased by 111 thousand, to 730 thousand.