Indexes dip with UnitedHealth, tech, ahead of jobs report

By Caroline Valetkevitch

NEW YORK (Reuters) -U.S. stocks ended lower on Thursday, with UnitedHealth down sharply and technology shares easing as investors awaited Friday's jobs report.

The S&P 500 technology index fell 0.2% after hitting a record closing high on Wednesday, when all three major U.S. stock indexes also notched closing highs.

Shares of Synopsys fell 12.4% after the chip design software firm forecast fiscal 2025 revenue below Wall Street expectations, in part due to a slump in China sales.

UnitedHealth's stock dropped 5.2% and was the biggest weight on the Dow and S&P 500, while the S&P 500 healthcare index fell 1.1%. Shares of Cigna were down 2.3%, while Molina Healthcare fell 3.2%.

Health insurance companies are reassessing the risks for their top executives the day after the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan. UnitedHealthcare is part of UnitedHealth Group.

Forecasters believe Friday's employment report will show nonfarm payrolls increased by 200,000 jobs in November, a Reuters survey showed. In October, payrolls rose 12,000, the smallest rise since December 2020.

Data earlier in the day showed the number of Americans filing new applications for unemployment benefits rose slightly last week.

Daniel Morgan, portfolio manager at Synovus Trust in Atlanta, Georgia, said investors are digesting recent economic data and looking ahead to Friday's employment report.

"Obviously the Street is going to be trading on what the Fed is going to do," he said.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 248.33 points, or 0.55%, to 44,765.71, the S&P 500 lost 11.38 points, or 0.19%, to 6,075.11 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 34.86 points, or 0.18%, to 19,700.26.

On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the U.S. economy is stronger than the central bank had expected when it started cutting rates in September, and he appeared to signal support for a slower pace of reductions.

Markets are pricing in about a 70% chance of a quarter-point cut in interest rates this month.

Cryptocurrency and blockchain-related stocks lost steam after surging earlier in the day when bitcoin, the world's largest cryptocurrency, stormed above the $100,000 mark for the first time.

MicroStrategy, the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, ended down 4.8%.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 1.25-to-1 ratio on the NYSE. There were 378 new highs and 74 new lows on the NYSE.

On the Nasdaq, 1,488 stocks rose and 2,833 fell as declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 1.9-to-1 ratio.

Volume on U.S. exchanges was 14.12 billion shares, compared with the roughly 14.7 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.

(Additional reporting by Shashwat Chauhan and Purvi Agarwal in Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai, Maju Samuel and David Gregorio)