U.S. stock futures fall after a subdued close on Wall Street By Investing.com

Investing.com – U.S. stock index futures were slightly lower on Thursday evening after Wall Street closed largely flat on weak trading volumes in a holiday-shortened week.

fell 0.1% to 6,090.0 points, while it fell 0.3% to 21,985.75 points by 7:27 p.m. ET (00:27 GMT). slightly lower by 0.1% to 43,668.0 points.

Wall Street reacted mutedly as the technology sector came under pressure from higher Treasury yields

In the absence of market-moving signals, investors reacted to a slight rise in U.S. Treasury yields, including the benchmark, which had earlier hit 4.64% – the highest since early May.

However, a strong seven-year Treasury auction earlier in the afternoon helped to lower yields somewhat, with the 10-year Treasury yield settling at 4.59% by late afternoon.

Higher yields make bonds more attractive relative to stocks and result in a shift of investor capital away from technology stocks. Rising yields also lead to higher borrowing costs, which can limit spending on innovation and expansion and further reduce profit margins.

The big tech giants closed mostly in the red, with Apple Inc (NASDAQ:) slightly higher despite an upgrade from tech bull Wedbush.

Shares of Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:) fell 1.8%, while market darling NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:) fell 0.2%.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:) Inc.’s Class C (NASDAQ:) shares were lower while arm Holdings (NASDAQ:) shares fell 1.6%.

It closed largely unchanged at 6,037.59 points, while falling 0.1% to 20,020.36 points. The increase was 0.1% to 43,325.80 points.

Investors assess U.S. jobless claims data

Weekly data released before the market open on Thursday showed a one-month low.

The Labor Department reported a 1,000 drop in initial claims for state unemployment benefits, bringing the seasonally adjusted figure for the week ended Dec. 21 to 219,000. That number is below the 224,000 claims economists had predicted for the same week.

Meanwhile, the number of people receiving benefits after the first week of aid, which serves as an indicator of hiring, rose by 46,000. That brought the seasonally adjusted total for the week ended Dec. 14 to 1.910 million, the highest level since November 2021. Economists had previously expected such continued claims to reach 1.880 million.

The contrasting signals from the data support the Fed’s view of taking a cautious approach and keeping interest rates stable while monitoring labor market trends.