U.S. stocks traded lower toward the end of trading, with the Dow Jones falling around 200 points on Thursday.

The Dow traded down 0.58% to 34,239.48 while the NASDAQ fell 1.20% to 13,307.77. The S&P 500 also fell, dropping, 1.07% to 4,354.96.

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Leading and Lagging Sectors

Utilities shares fell by just 0.4% on Thursday.

In trading on Thursday, real estate shares tumbled by 2.5%.

Top Headline

Darden Restaurants Inc (NYSE:DRI) reported better-than-expected earnings for its first quarter.

Darden Restaurants reported first-quarter FY24 sales growth of 11.6% year-on-year to $2.73 billion, beating the analyst consensus estimate of $2.71 billion. Adjusted EPS of $1.78 beat the consensus estimate of $1.73.

Equities Trading UP

Murphy Canyon Acquisition Corp. (NASDAQ:MURF) shares shot up 39% to $17.90. Murphy Canyon Acquisition reported stockholder approval of the proposed combination with Conduit Pharmaceuticals.

Shares of Near Intelligence, Inc. (NASDAQ:NIR) got a boost, shooting 45% to $0.3030. Near Intelligence said it is a trusted partner of leading global commercial real estate companies seeking high-quality real estate analytics on any location, building or site.

Splunk Inc. (NASDAQ:SPLK) shares were also up, gaining 21% to $144.82. Cisco Systems, Inc (NASDAQ:CSCO) agreed to acquire Splunk for $157 per share in cash, representing approximately $28 billion in equity value.

Equities Trading DOWN

Shares of QuantaSing Group Limited (NASDAQ:QSG) were down 29% to $2.38.

Seelos Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:SEEL) was down, falling 38% to $0.1901 after the company announced a $4.5 million registered direct offering of common stock and warrants to purchase common stock. Guggenheim downgraded Seelos Therapeutics from Buy to Neutral.

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Commodities

In commodity news, oil traded up 0.2% to $89.81 while gold traded down 1.4% at $1,940.10.

Silver traded down 0.4% to $23.73 on Thursday while copper fell 2% to $3.7020.

Euro zone

European shares closed lower today. The eurozone’s STOXX 600 fell 1.30% London’s FTSE 100 fell 0.69% while Spain’s IBEX 35 Index fell 1% The German DAX fell 1.33% French CAC 40 declined 1.59%, while Italy’s FTSE MIB Index dipped 1.78%.

The Bank of England maintained its policy interest rate at 5.25% on Sept. 21. Spain's trade deficit shrank to EUR 4.9 billion in July from EUR 6.56 billion in the year-ago month. Construction output in Italy fell by 1.1% year-over-year in July. The manufacturing climate indicator in France climbed to 99 in September versus a revised 97 in a month ago.

Asia Pacific Markets

Asian markets closed lower on Thursday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 falling 1.37%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index falling 1.29% and China’s Shanghai Composite Index falling 0.77%. India’s S&P BSE Sensex, meanwhile, declined 0.85%.

The annual inflation rate in Hong Kong came in at 1.8% in August, remaining at its lowest level in four months. Hong Kong’s current account surplus increased to HKD 47.5 billion in the second quarter from HKD 34.7 billion in the year-ago period. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority kept its base rate unchanged at 5.75%.

Economics

U.S. initial jobless claims fell by 20,000 to 201,000 in the week ending Sept. 16, recording the lowest reading since late January and compared to market estimates of 225,000.

The U.S. current account deficit shrank to $212.1 billion in the second quarter from a revised reading of a $214.5 billion gap in the prior period and compared to the market estimates of a $221.0 billion gap.

The Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index declined to -13.5 in September from 12 in the previous month and worse than market expectations of -0.7.

Existing-home sales in the U.S. fell0.7% from a month ago to an annualized rate of 4.04 million units in August.

U.S. natural gas supplies rose 64 billion cubic feet last week, the EIA said.

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COVID-19 Update

The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 108,530,790 cases with around 1,175,490 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 44,998,290 cases and 531,930 deaths, while France reported over 40,138,560 COVID-19 cases with 167,640 deaths. In total, there were at least 695,580,070 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with more than 6,918,190 deaths.