US stocks flat as rollercoaster 2020 comes to a close

US stocks flat as rollercoaster 2020 comes to a close

Waterford crystals were installed to the Times Square ball for New Years Eve Celebration in New York City, on December 27, 2020

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US stocks opened mostly flat on Thursday morning to finish off a rollercoaster year for markets. Initial jobless claims declined by 19,000 to 787,000, beating the consensus estimate of 828,800.Watch major indexes update live here.

US stocks opened relatively flat on Thursday morning to finish off a rollercoaster year for markets. 

The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits for the first time dropped unexpectedly last week- the second straight week of declines. Initial jobless claims declined by 19,000 to 787,000. The consensus estimate was for jobless claims to rise to 828,800.

Meanwhile, continuing claims decreased to 5.22 million in the week that ended Dec.19. That's 150,000 less than the 5.37 million claims economists projected.

Here's where US indexes stood shortly after the 9:30 a.m. ET open on Thursday:





S&P 500: 3,730.22, down 0.05%Dow Jones industrial average: 30,394.13, down 0.05% (15.43 points)Nasdaq composite: 12,872.23, up 0.02%

Read more:We spoke with Wall Street's 9 best-performing fund managers of 2020 to learn how they crushed the chaotic market - and compile the biggest bets they're making for 2021

Several cryptocurrency exchanges including Crypto.com, Coinbase, and OkCoin said this week