Stocks Lower After Wednesday's Rally

U.S. Market
Stocks were lower after yesterday’s rally.

Initial unemployment claims were up 1,000 to 291,000 last week. The less volatile four-week moving average rose by 2,250 to 304,750.

The Philly Fed index, which measures the strength of the Mid-Atlantic manufacturing sector, fell to 5.0 in March from 5.2 in the previous month. The reading was well below expectations.

At midday the Dow was down 0.7%, the S&P 500 was off 0.6% while the Nasdaq rose 0.1%.

Stocks on the Move
Shares of Guess? (GES) rallied over 15% this morning after fundamentals showed small areas of improvement in the fourth quarter. In particular, e-commerce sales grew 37%, the Marciano collection comped up double digits, and women's handbags, outerwear, and footwear comped positively. Additionally, management expects store closures, an improved product offering, and a healthier inventory position to yield an improvement in operating margin in fiscal 2016, excluding the impact of foreign exchange.

Foreign Markets
European markets were mixed today. In late trading, the FTSE 100 was up 0.1%, the Paris CAC as down 0.3% while Germany’s DAX was down 0.6%.

Asian shares were also mixed on the day. The Shanghai Composite was up 0.1%, the Hang Seng was 1.5% higher while the Nikkei 225 was down 0.4%.