Wall Street opens flat after job report

Wall Street opened flat on Thursday after a report showed a little improvement in the U.S. labor market.

The number of people applying for unemployment benefits held steady at 444,000 in the latest week, the Labor Department reported. Claims actually fell by 4,000 for the week ended May 8, but data were revised up by 4,000 for the prior week. The four-week average of initial claims dropped by 9,000 to 450,500.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has started an investigation into whether the banks, along with others including Goldman Sachs and Bank of America's Merrill Lynch unit, misled rating agencies.

Cisco Systems Inc. reported late Wednesday a 63 percent jump in third-quarter profits and said it is gaining shares in the rebounding corporate technology market.

The company reported quarterly income of 2.2 billion U.S. dollars, or 37 cents a share, compared with a profit of 1.35 billion dollars, or 23 cents a share, for the year-earlier period. However, shares of Cisco declined 1 dollar, or 3.74 percent, to 25.74 dollars.

The Dow was down 7.63, or 0.07 percent, to 10,889.28. The S&P 500 declined 1.60, or 0.14 percent, to 1,170.07 and the Nasdaq composite index rose 1.39, or 0.06 percent, to 2,426.41.

Source:Xinhua