STOCK EXCHANGE: Alphabet talked about giant investments – the stock falls at the opening of Wall Street

The stock market opened lower in the United States. Futures contracts led to a bullish opening for Wall Street, but the direction of the futures started to reverse after 14:00.

The S&P 500, which follows the price development of shares of five hundred US companies, was 0.6 percent lower compared to yesterday’s closing reading.

The Dow Jones, which follows thirty major companies, was also down 0.6 percent. Nasdaq, which focuses on the technology sector, was down 0.8.

The biggest decline in the broad S&P 500 index came from companies offering discretionary consumer products. Fashion house Ralph Lauren was down 7.7 percent when the company reported a decline in its sales last quarter.

Provider of data center services Amazon was down 3.6 percent. The company publishes its interim report today.

Giant investments from Alphabet

Known for Google Alphabet was down 2.8 percent. Alphabet reported yesterday its interim reportwho said that the turnover increased more than the analysts’ expectations, but the increase in the operating profit did not reach the expectations.

The company said it will invest $185 billion this year, completely beating analysts’ forecasts. The average analyst forecast was $120 billion.

According to analysts, the reading may scare some investors, but on the other hand, the number could be seen as underscoring the company’s faith in the development of artificial intelligence.

Alphabet competes with Amazon and Microsoft’s with data centers where, for example, companies and governments store their data. Amazon is the market leader, followed by Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.

Microsoft shares were down 2.8 percent.

Powerful processors are bought for data centers, which are used to train artificial intelligence. Processors are designed, for example, by the world’s most valuable company Nvidia.

Nvidia’s stock was up 0.8 percent.

More unemployment benefits were applied for than expected

According to the US Department of Labor, 231,000 new unemployment claims were filed last week. The median of economists’ forecasts expected a gentle rise to 212,000 applications from the previous week’s 209,000 applications.

The recent reading exceeded the forecasts of all economists. The forecasts are based on data from the news agency Bloomberg. The numbers were published at 3:30 p.m.

Bloomberg estimates that the cold weather conditions have brought interruptions to companies’ business operations, which may have caused Americans to apply for unemployment benefits more than before.

However, the companies have reported about employee reductions independent of weather conditions. For example, Amazon.