Wall Street Heading for Another Quiet, Mixed Day

NEW YORK (AP) -- U.S. stocks are drifting again on a quiet Thursday following two straight days where indexes barely budged.

The S&P 500 was virtually unchanged in early trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 38 points, or 0.1%, as of 9:50 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.3% lower.

A report showing a pick-up in layoffs helped keep the market steady. The number of workers applying for unemployment benefits rose by more last week than economists expected, though it remains relatively low compared with history.

That could be a sign the economy can pull off a hoped-for balancing act of staying solid enough to avoid a bad recession, but not so strong that it puts upward pressure on inflation. Treasury yields erased earlier gains immediately after the report's release, indicating expectations for it to encourage the Federal Reserve to deliver long-sought cuts to interest rates.

Elsewhere on Wall Street, some stocks swung sharply following their latest earnings reports.

Equinix jumped 11.2% after reporting stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The company, which runs data centers around the world, also said that an independent investigation led by its board found no accounting inconsistencies or errors that would require financial restatements. An investment firm earlier had accused it of "major accounting manipulation."

Robinhood Markets rose 1.2% after breezing past analysts' expectations for profit and revenue. It showed broad-based growth, particularly from customers trading cryptocurrencies.

Airbnb sank 6.9% despite also topping expectations for profit and revenue. It gave a forecasted range for revenue in the current quarter whose midpoint fell short of analysts'. It said an earlier Easter pulled more of its business this year into the first quarter from the second quarter.

U.S.-traded shares of Arm Holdings dropped 6.6% even though it also reported better profit and revenue for the latest quarter than expected. The U.K.-based chip company gave a forecast for revenue this upcoming fiscal year whose midpoint was a bit shy of analysts' estimates.

Beyond Meat, the maker of plant-based meat substitutes, fell 11.8% after it posted a much worse loss than analysts expected as demand continued to crater.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury edged down to 4.49% from 4.50% late Wednesday. The two-year yield, which more closely tracks expectations for the Fed, slipped to 4.82% from 4.84% late Wednesday.

Treasury yields have largely been easing since Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said last week that the central bank remains closer to cutting its main interest rate than hiking it, despite a string of stubbornly high readings on inflation this year. A cooler-than-expected jobs report on Friday, meanwhile, suggested the U.S. economy could pull off the delicate balancing act and avoids getting too cold or too hot.

In stock markets abroad, indexes rose modestly in London and other markets in Europe after the Bank of England hinted it may soon cut its key interest rate from a 16-year high.

In Asia, indexes were mixed. They climbed 1.2% in Hong Kong and 0.8% in Shanghai after China reported its exports rose 1.5% in April from a year earlier, while imports jumped 8.4%. The renewed growth suggests a stronger recovery in demand than earlier data had suggested.