The stock market closed with an overall loss in the top three indices on Wednesday. As the markets open for

Thursday, we can expect heavy influence from economic meetings.

Scheduled for Thursday are FOMC meetings with FOMC members Bowman and Bostic speaking. They will likely talk about the current state of the US economy, high inflation numbers, and interest rates. Inflation has been increasing lately, and the FOMC meeting should reiterate that and keep it in the public consciousness, creating a hesitant stock market where trading is muted.

Also scheduled for Thursday is a report for unemployment claims in the United States. This has been a strong factor in helping indicate where inflation is at and where it might be headed. In recent months, the jobless claims numbers have been erratic, showing signs of improvement one month and then worsening the next month.

April started off with a report of 221,000 jobless claims, which was higher than the 213,000 that was expected. March was better, where jobless claims were about 210,000 each week when 212,000 were expected.

The last jobless claims report showed improvement, though, with 211,000 compared to an expectation of 216,000.

The Stock Market Reacts

The major stock indices all closed low as trading ended on Wednesday. They should open low as well today in anticipation of poor numbers from the jobless claims and high inflation talk from the FOMC meeting.

The Dow Jones closed with a loss of 0.12%, but tech heavy stocks on the Nasdaq Composite brought that index down by 1.15%. The S&P 500 closed with a decrease of 0.58% on Thursday with major losses from several pharmaceutical companies but also major gains by some of those stocks as well.

The big earnings report that investors are waiting on is for General Motors (GM), scheduled for next week.