Markets opened higher Thursday morning following the pre-session release of Durable Goods and Jobless Claims, but indexes began to fall after the 10am release of New Home Sales, which failed to gain as much as predictions. 

Roughly 90 minutes into the session, the S&P 500 has just begun climbing back with a 0.28% gain to 895, while the Dow is moving upwards but remains down 0.17% to 8286, and the Nasdaq has shed 0.1% to 1729.

The day had started positively with a 1.9% advance in Durable Goods for April. The monthly gain, led by auto demand and increased defense spending, was the biggest since the recession began in December 2007. 

However, the advance in the headline hid some of the details of the report, including downward revisions to the prior month. 

“Shipments of durable goods declined for the second consecutive month, and shipments are still running ahead of orders,” said analysts at IHS Global Insight. “Thus, only scant progress is being made to reduce the inventory overhang.”

Meanwhile, 623,000 Americans filed for initial jobless claims in the week ending May 23. This compared favorably with the 636,000 claimants in the prior week, but it also marks the 16th straight week that new claims have exceeded 600k.

Continuing claims, or the number of the people still receiving unemployment benefits, soared by 110,000 in the week ending May 15 to 6.788 million, yet another record high.

At 10 am, we saw New Home Sales in April manage to edge up a bit, but the gain failed to match market expectations. In addition, the Census Bureau reported downward revisions to the previous month.

Sales of single-family houses saw a 0.3% advance to an annual pace of 352,000 in April,  Analysts had been looking for a 1.1% increase. Data from March was revised down to show a 3.0% decrease to 351,000, rather than the -0.6% originally reported.

“We do not expect a sharp rebound in new home sales, because credit conditions remain restrictive, foreclosures are increasing and the labor market remains weak, commented Joseph LaVorgna from DeutscheBank, “but the upside is that the housing drag on GDP should diminish in the coming quarters as inventories are worked down and starts and permits stabilize.”

After markets close today, Richard Fisher from the Dallas Fed will speak in Washington on the economic outlook at 5:45pm.