Most US indices fell, although small firms set another record

Most US indices fell, although small firms set another record

Most U.S. stock indices closed lower on Thursday to weaken large technology companies at the close of trading, although shares of small companies reached another record high. The S&P 500 index was pushed down by losses from Apple and Microsoft and other technology companies. These losses outweighed the profits of banks and industrial companies. The report on worse-than-expected developments in the US labor market also had a negative effect. In the USA, 965,000 new unemployed were added last week. The S&P 500 index weakened by 0.4 percent to 3,795.54 points. The Dow Jones industrial index lost 0.2 percent and closed at 30,991.52 points. The technology Nasdaq fell 0.1 percent to 13,112.64 points, but the Russell 2000 smaller company index improved 2.1 percent to 2,155.35 points. Asian stock markets followed developments on Wall Street and headed down on Friday. Tokyo's main Nikkei 225 index weakened by 0.6 percent to 28,519.18 points. The Hong Kong Hang Seng index lost 0.3 percent and China's Shanghai Composite lost 0.6 percent.