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 was down 73 points, or 0.2%, to 33,343. The S&P 500 lost less than 0.1%, and the Nasdaq Composite 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.
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