国际英语新闻：U.S. stocks edge down despite positive economic reports

NEW YORK, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) -- U.S. stocks edged down on Thursday as investors shrugged off a bunch of positive economic reports and chose to lock in profits before year-end.

The Dow Jones industrial average decried 15.67 points, or 0.14 percent, to 11,569.71. The Standard & Poor's 500 index dropped 1. 90 points, or 0.15 percent, to 1,257.88 and Nasdaq fell 3.95 points, or 0.15 percent, to 2,662.98.

On Thursday, the National Association of Realtors said the index of pending home sales surprisingly increased 3.5 percent in November after jumping a record 10 percent last month, much higher than the median forecast of analysts. This showed an ongoing gradual pickup in house market.

The Labor Department reported that initial jobless claims fell a very steep and very surprising 34,000 in the December 25 week to a suddenly sub-400,000 level of 388,000, and the four-week average fell a steep 12,500 to 414,000, indicating improvement in the labor market.

The Chicago Purchasing Managers Index climbed to 68.6 in December, up from 62.5 in November, much better than the market expectation.

This series of encouraging economic data indicated more recovery signs in United States, but failed to lift equities.

And as the year-end nears, the trading volume was very thin.

The financial and healthcare sectors saw the biggest losses. Shares of Bank of America Corp. dropped 0.23 percent to 13.28. Johnson & Johnson declined 0.19, or 0.31 percent to 61.94.

In the other markets, New York crude benchmark fell sharply 1. 28 dollars, or 1.40 percent to 89.84 dollars a barrel as investors took profits before year-end. Gold futures on the COMEX Devision of the New York Mercantile Exchange lost 7.6 dollars, of 0.5 percent to 1,405.9 per ounce as U.S. job report outweighed the dollar's losses.