U.S. stocks open mostly lower after Fed’s Logan says economic data doesn’t justify rate hike pause yet

U.S. stock indexes opened mostly lower on Thursday as investors grew more confident the White House would reach a deal with Congress to avoid a debt default, while weighing the Federal Reserve’s next interest rate move after Fed Bank of Dallas President Lorie Logan said the case for a pause next month is not clear. Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
+0.34%
was down 73 points, or 0.2%, to 33,343. The S&P 500
SPX,
+0.94%
lost less than 0.1%, and the Nasdaq Composite
COMP,
+1.51%
gained 0.2%. Fed’s Logan said Thursday that the economic data points so far don’t justify skipping a rate increase at the central bank’s next meeting in June, and she remained concerned about whether inflation is falling fast enough. Fed funds futures traders priced in a 31% chance of another quarter-of-a-percentage-point rate hike by the Federal Reserve in June, according to CME FedWatch Tool. In other economic data, the number of Americans who applied for unemployment benefits in mid-May sank to 242,000, aided by efforts in Massachusetts to counter a recent spike in fraudulent claims.