Daily Recap

• U.S. equity markets finished mostly lower Thursday after better-than-expected Initial Jobless Claims data has also thrown a political curveball into the now-stalled negotiations for the next round of fiscal stimulus.
• Still higher by 0.7% for the week, the S&P 500 finished lower by 0.2% today while the Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 80 points following yesterday's 290 point-rally.
• Pushing their declines to roughly 2% on the week, the Equity REIT ETF (VNQ) finished lower by 1.2% today with all 18 property sectors finishing in negative territory.
• Initial Jobless Claims declined to 0.96 million last week, which was the lowest level since the onset of economic lockdowns in March. Continuing Jobless Claims, meanwhile, declined to 15.48 and have retreated by 9.4 million since their peak in May.
• The Citi Economic Surprise Index has remained near record-highs while FactSet's Earnings Insight shows that 83% of S&P 500 companies reported a positive EPS surprise, which is the highest "beat percentage" ever.

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