Markets: News  

The S&P 500 continues to trade lower by 0.3% while the Nasdaq trades higher by 0.2%. Among today's big batch of data, weekly initial claims were higher than expected at 778,000 (Briefing.com consensus 735,000) and new home sales for October were better than expected at 999,000 units (Briefing.com consensus 977,000). Neither has moved the market, but the mixed data helps explain the mixed session. Recently, weekly crude inventories had an unexpected draw in the EIA's report, although oil prices ($45.58/bbl, +0.58, +1.3%) have not reacted to the data.