Stock market today: Wall Street inches lower ahead of closely-watched labor market data

Wall Street tipped toward small losses early Thursday ahead of some labor market reports that will be closely analyzed by the Federal Reserve as it shifts its focus from inflation toward supporting the broader economy.

Futures for the S&P 500 were 0.1% lower before the bell, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.2%.

The dominant question hanging over Wall Street has been whether the job market can keep holding up after the Federal Reserve earlier kept interest rates at a two-decade high. The Fed was trying to press the brakes hard enough on the economy to stamp out high inflation.

Stocks are near records in large part on the belief that the U.S. economy will continue to grow now that the Federal Reserve has begun cutting interest rates. The Fed last month lowered its main interest rate for the first time in more than four years and indicated more cuts will arrive through next year.

Coming later Thursday is the Labor Department's unemployment benefits report, which broadly represents the number of U.S. layoffs in a given week. Layoffs have remained historically low, though started ticking higher beginning in May.

Treasury yields rose after a report Wednesday by ADP Research indicated that hiring by U.S. employers outside the government may have been stronger last month than expected.

That could auger well for the government’s more comprehensive report on the U.S. job market due out Friday, the first since the Fed cut its benchmark lending rate by half a point last month.

Levi shares tumbled 12% in premarket trading after the maker of blue jeans came up short on sales projections and trimmed its fourth-quarter outlook. CEO Michelle Gass said the company was working to address areas of underperformance, including “strategic alternatives” for its Dockers brand.

In German at midday, Germany's DAX shed 0.3% while the CAC 40 in Paris gave up 0.5%. In London, the FTSE 100 gained 0.4%.

The U.S. dollar gained against the Japanese yen as officials indicated that conditions were not conducive for an interest rate hike.

That helped push Tokyo's Nikkei 225 index higher. It gained 2% to 38,552.06, while the dollar traded at 146.67 Japanese yen, up from 146.41 yen late Wednesday.

A weaker yen is an advantage for major export manufacturers like Toyota Motor Corp. and Sony Corp.

The dollar had been trading around 142 yen after the ruling Liberal Democrats chose Shigeru Ishiba to head the party and succeed Fumio Kishida as prime minister. Ishiba, who took office on Tuesday, had expressed support for the central bank's recent moves to raise its near-zero benchmark interest rate, which stands at around 0.25%. That led traders to bet that the yen would gain in value.

But after a meeting between Ishiba and Bank of Japan Gov. Kazuo Ueda, both officials indicated that the central bank did not view further rate hikes as suitable for the economy at this time. That prompted a flurry of selling of yen, which benefits big export manufacturers.

Elsewhere in Asia, Hong Kong's Hang Seng dropped 1.5% to 22,113.51 as investors sold shares to lock in profits after the benchmark roared 6.2% higher a day earlier on a wave of investor enthusiasm over recent announcements from Beijing about measures to rev up the slowing Chinese economy.

With Shanghai and other markets in China closed for a weeklong holiday, trading has crowded into Hong Kong. Markets in South Korea and Taiwan also were closed on Thursday. India's Sensex fell 2.1%.

Oil prices rose again as the world waited to see how Israel will respond to Tuesday’s missile attack from Iran.

U.S. benchmark crude oil gained $1.09 to $71.19 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, the international standard, was up $1 to $74.90 per barrel.

Israel is not a major producer of oil, but Iran is, and a worry is that a broadening war could affect neighboring countries that are also integral to the flow of crude.

Also early Thursday, the euro fell to $1.1042 from $1.1047.

FILE - People pass the New York Stock Exchange on Oct. 1, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan, File)

A person walks in front of the Tokyo Stock Exchange building Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

FILE - Signs marking the intersection of Broad and Walls Streets appear near the New York Stock Exchange on Oct. 1, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan, File)

A person walks in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

A person rides a bicycle in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

A person looks at an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

A person stands in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

A person walks in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

An Israeli airstrike on an apartment in central Beirut has killed nine people, according to Lebanon's health ministry. Israel has been pounding areas of the country where the Hezbollah militant group has a strong presence since late September, but has rarely struck in the heart of the capital.

There was no warning before the strike late Wednesday, which hit an apartment in central Beirut not far from the United Nations headquarters, the prime minister’s office and parliament. Hezbollah’s civil defense unit said seven of its members were killed.

The strike came as Israel was pursuing a ground incursion into Lebanon against Hezbollah, while also conducting strikes in Gaza that killed dozens, including children. The Israeli military said eight soldiers have died in the conflict in southern Lebanon.

Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire across the Lebanon border almost daily since the day after Hamas’ cross-border attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 Israelis and took 250 others hostage. Israel declared war on the militant group in the Gaza Strip in response. More than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory, and just over half the dead have been women and children, according to local health officials.

Here is the latest:

BRUSSELS — Belgium’s VTM broadcaster says that one of its television reporters and a cameraman have been attacked in central Beirut while reporting on the war between Israel and Hezbollah.

VTM said that correspondent Robin Ramaekers and cameraman Stijn De Smet were working on a report on Wednesday evening about a bombing in the Lebanese capital when they were attacked in unclear circumstances.

“Stijn is currently in a hospital in Beirut where he is being treated for a leg wound. Robin is also still being cared for, in another hospital, for some fractures to the face,” a statement said. It underlined that the cause of the attack is not yet known.

VTM said the two men have worked in conflict zones for more than a decade. Lebanon’s Information Minister Ziad Makary said only that he is “following” the situation

MADRID — Spain’s defense ministry says its two planes sent to Beirut to evacuate Spanish civilians have taken off and are heading to an airbase near Madrid.

Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles said that between 400 and 500 of the around 1,000 Spaniards registered as living in Lebanon are being airlifted out. The government has urged all Spaniards to leave and is offering to assist those who say they want to be evacuated.

Robles said that a third plane could be sent if needed.

Spain also has 676 soldiers in Lebanon deployed under a United Nations peacekeeping mission. Robles said that the troops are staying put until otherwise ordered by the U.N. command.

ISTANBUL — Hundreds of people leaving Lebanon arrived in southern Turkey Thursday.

A ship carrying over 300 passengers who boarded the vessel in the Lebanese city of Tripoli docked at a port in Mersin on the country’s Mediterranean coast, according to Turkish news agency IHA.

IHA said the Med Lines ship transporting foreign nationals was the third to arrive at the Mersin port in recent days.

The passengers then travel onward to their home countries, IHA reported.

The increasing violence in Lebanon is a significant escalation in the war in the Middle East, this time between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

BEIRUT —The Lebanese Red Cross says an Israeli strike killed four of its paramedics and a Lebanese army soldier as they were evacuating wounded people from the south. It says the convoy near the village of Taybeh, which was accompanied by Lebanese troops, was targeted Thursday despite coordinating its movements with U.N. peacekeepers.

BEIRUT — The Israeli military has ordered the evacuation of villages and towns in southern Lebanon that are north of a United Nations-declared buffer zone established after the 2006 war. The warning issued Thursday signaled a possible broadening of Israel’s incursion into southern Lebanon, which until now has been confined to areas close to the border.

BEIRUT —Lebanon’s Health Ministry Thursday said that at least nine people were killed in an Israeli strike in central Beirut, as it is also running DNA tests on remains they have obtained to identify others.

Hezbollah said that seven paramedics and rescue workers from its medical arm the Islamic Health Committee were killed in the strike that hit its office in Bashoura. The Health Ministry said 14 others were wounded in the strike early Thursday.

Prior to the attack, the ministry said that 55 people were killed and 156 others were wounded in Israeli strikes over Lebanon on Wednesday.

The frequent strikes in Beirut’s southern suburbs as well as occasional strikes in central Beirut have exacerbated Lebanon’s displacement crisis. The government estimated days ago that some one million people are currently displaced in the cash-strapped country.

Environment Minister Nasser Yassin, who is spearheading the government’s response efforts to the war, told local media that some 167,000 Syrians left Lebanon over the past 24 hours alone. The Associated Press could not independently confirm.

JERUSALEM — The Israeli military said Thursday that it killed a senior Hamas leader in an airstrike in the Gaza Strip around three months ago.

It said that a strike on an underground compound in northern Gaza killed Rawhi Mushtaha and two other Hamas commanders, Sameh Siraj and Sameh Oudeh.

There was no immediate comment from Hamas.

The military said the three commanders had taken refuge in a fortified underground compound in northern Gaza that served as a command and control center.

It said Mushtaha was a close associate of Yahya Sinwar, the top leader of Hamas who helped mastermind the Oct. 7 attack into Israel that triggered the war.

Sinwar is believed to be alive and in hiding inside Gaza.

NICOSIA, Cyprus — The British government chartered more flights to help U.K. nationals leave Lebanon, a day after an evacuation flight left Beirut.

The government said in a statement that the flights will continue as “long as the security situation allows” and that it’s working to increase capacity on commercial flights for British nationals.

U.K. Defense Secretary John Healey on Wednesday visited a British military base on Cyprus where around 700 troops, Foreign Office staff and Border Force officers have been deployed to a British military base in Cyprus to help with evacuation plans.

British nationals and their spouses, partners and children under the age of 18 are eligible. Dependents who aren’t British nationals will need a valid visa granting a maximum six-month stay in the U.K.

BEIRUT — An Israeli strike in the Lebanese capital Beirut killed seven health and rescue workers, an Islamic health organization said.

The airstrike in the residential Bashoura district targeted an apartment in a multi-story building that houses an office of the Health Society, a group of civilian first responders affiliated to Hezbollah.

It was the closest strike to the central downtown district of Beirut, where the United Nations and government offices are located.

It was the second airstrike to hit central Beirut this week and the second to directly target the Health Society in 24 hours. No Israeli warning was issued to the area before it was hit. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the strike in central Beirut or the allegations it used phorphorous bombs.

Israel has mostly concentrated its airstrikes in south and eastern Lebanon, as well as the southern suburbs of Beirut where Hezbollah has a strong presence, but its attacks have spanned the entire country and killed many civilians.

Beirut’s southern suburbs also saw heavy bombardment overnight in areas where the Israeli army had earlier issued a warning online for residents to evacuate.

TOKYO — Japan on Thursday dispatched two Self Defense Force planes to prepare for a possible airlift of Japanese citizens from Lebanon.

Two C-2 transport aircraft are expected to arrive in Jordan and Greece on Friday, Japan NHK national television reported.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters that there has been no report of injury involving the about 50 Japanese nationals in Lebanon.

Japan dispatched SDF aircraft in October and November 2023 to evacuate more than 100 Japanese and South Korean citizens from Israel.

SYDNEY — Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said on Thursday her government had booked 500 seats on commercial aircraft for Australian citizens, permanent residents and their families to leave Lebanon on Saturday.

The seats are available to 1,700 Australians and their families known to be in Lebanon on two flights from Beirut to Cyprus, Wong said.

“What I would say to Australians who wish to leave, please take whatever option is available to you,” Wong told reporters in Geelong, Australia.

“Please do not wait for your preferred route,” she added.

A Hezbollah paramedic walks between debris after an airstrike hit an apartment in a multistory building, in central Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Lebanese women stand in front an apartment in a multistory building hit by Israeli airstrike, in central Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

A destroyed apartment in a multistory building hit by Israeli airstrike, in central Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Hezbollah paramedics walk between debris after an airstrike hit an apartment in a multistory building, in central Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

A woman reacts in front an apartment in a multistory building hit by Israeli airstrike, in central Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

This image from United Nations Television, shows Israel Ambassador Danny Danon during a meeting of the United Nations Security Council, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (UNTV via AP)

Soldiers carry the coffin of Israeli Army Capt. Eitan Yitzhak Oster, who was killed in action in Lebanon, during his funeral at Mt. Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

An Israeli Apache helicopter releases flares near the Israeli-Lebanon border, as seen from northern Israel, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)

Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Police stand guard at the site of an apparent Israeli airstrike in Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki)

Workers clean at the site of an apparent Israeli airstrike in Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki)

People collecting remains of victims after an airstrike that hit an apartment in Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

A firefighter stands in front of an apartment hit by an Israeli airstrike, in Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)