S&P 500 snaps 4-day winning streak, Nasdaq-100 touches record before retreating; European markets close lower as ECB expands crisis bond-buying program; BELEX15 ends almost flat; Budget Deficit of Serbia in First Four Months RSD 114 Billion
Stocks were lower on Thursday, giving back some of the strong gains for June, as Wall Street grappled with disappointing jobs data and a late-day sell-off in tech shares. The S&P 500 slid 0.3% to 3,112.35 while the Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.7% to 9,615.81. It was the first decline in five sessions for both indexes. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed just above the flatline, advancing 11 points, or 0.1%, to 26,281.82.
Shares of major tech companies pressured the broader market. Facebook and Netflix both dropped more than 1.6%. Amazon closed 0.7% lower while Alphabet and Apple were down by more than 0.8% each. The Labor Department said 1.877 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week, topping a Dow Jones estimate of 1.775 million. Continuing jobless claims rose sharply, nearly reaching 21.5 million.

European stocks closed lower Thursday after the European Central Bank announced a larger-than-expected expansion of its coronavirus stimulus program.
The pan-European Stoxx 600 closed down by almost 0.8% provisionally following the ECB decision, with all sectors turning negative. Auto shares were the worst performers, falling 1.7%. The euro zone’s central bank announced a 600 billion euro ($672 billion) expansion of its Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP), a larger increase than analysts had been expecting. The PEPP expansion comes on top of an existing 750 billion euros of government bond purchases set out in March, bringing the total value of asset purchases to 1.35 trillion euros.
The central bank updated its forecasts, saying it now expects the economy to contract by 8.7% this year, before rebounding to 5.2% growth in 2021 and 3.3% in 2022. Those projections were significantly worse than the ECB’s own forecasts in March.

BELEX15 ended Thursday with almost no change as 3.6% loss at Energoprojekt was neutralized with 1.6% gain at Metalac, while other bigger names saw very symbolic stock price changes. The most traded name was Komercijana Banka as it generated RSD 14.8m in volume.
The budget deficit of Serbia in the first four months of the current year is RSD 114 billion, as the revenues were RSD 379.8 billion and expenditures RSD 493.8 billion, the Ministry of Finance announced. In April, the deficit was RSD 67.1 billion, with the income of RSD 83.5 billion and the expenditures of RSD 150.5 billion. Deficit is clearly huge, probably due to sharp drop in revenues during covid crisis.
Source: CNBC, Ilirika