Stocks ease lower on Wall Street, except for technology

Stocks are easing lower in early trading on Wall Street Thursday, a day after major indexes briefly flirted with all-time highs before closing mixed. The S&P 500 gave up 0.5% shortly after the opening bell, but it’s still holding on to a gain for the week. Banks and industrial companies were helping lead the way lower, while gains in some Big Tech stocks including Amazon and Facebook helped push the Nasdaq to a small gain. The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell last week to 709,000, the lowest number since March but still very high by historical standards.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE: AP’s earlier story appears below.

Stocks fell back across Asia on Thursday after gains for big technology shares pushed most Wall Street benchmarks higher.

News of potentially effective vaccines for COVID-19 has been countered by concerns over the logistical challenges of ensuring access to billions of people and over rising caseloads that are leading governments to re-instate restrictions on business and other activities to battle the pandemic.

Vaccine trades reversed to give way to ‘stay home' trades" as shares of companies that do well when people stay home and work remotely rallied, Mizuho Bank said in a commentary. But it added, “Fact of the matter is, progress on vaccine development is at worst two steps forward one step back, and not one step forward and two steps back on a sustained basis."

Tokyo's Nikkei 225 index gained 0.4% to 25,459.13 despite a report that machinery orders fell in September, suggesting weakness in corporate investment.

But the mood was more somber elsewhere in Asia.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng index fell 0.1% to 26,206.78 and the Shanghai Composite index declined 0.3% to 3,332.24. In Seoul, the Kospi gave up 0.2% to 2,480.95. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 slipped 0.2% to...