The US stock indices show a moderate decline in early trading. Market participants evaluate the statements of the Federal Reserve System members and statistical data from the US.
On Thursday, the US Department of Commerce increased the estimate of growth of GDP in the second quarter of 2016 to 1.4% in annual terms, from the previously disclosed 1.1%. The experts on average expected a revision of rate growth to 1.3%.
In addition, the number of initial claims for unemployment benefits in the US last week rose by only 3000, weaker than market expectations and amounted to 254000, which is a very low figure and speaks of the active labor market growth of the country.
Meanwhile, the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Dennis Lockhart, said that the economy is approaching full employment, and inflation excluding energy and food prices was 1.6% in August, which is only slightly below the target of 2%.
Earlier, the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, Patrick Harker, said that he prefers a more rapid continuation of the normalization of interest rates in the United States to keep pace with the rate of growth of consumer prices.
Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 13.73 points (0.08%) and amounted to 18,325.51 points.
Standard & Poor's 500 fell 2.89 points (0.13%) to 2,168.48 points.
Nasdaq Composite lost 7.6 points (0.14%) to 5310.95 points.
The capitalization of pharmaceutical companies Inter-Cellular Therapies Inc. fell 63% after the poor results of clinical tests of its drug against schizophrenia.
At the same time, shares of PepsiCo, the second largest producer of carbonated beverages in the world, have jumped in price by 1.5%. The company increased its net profit more than 3.5 times and improved profit forecast for the whole year in the third fiscal quarter.
McDonalds share price increased by 0.4% on news that the fast-food chain raised its quarterly dividend by 6%, to 94 cents per share.
The Ebay Inc shares increased by 3.8% after analysts at Deutsche Bank (DE: DBKGn) improved recommendations for them to "buy".