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| - Wall Street stocks fell again early Thursday despite actions by central banks to unveil massive new stimulus measures, and as US data showed the growing hit from the slowdown generated by the coronavirus pandemic. After closing on Wednesday below the 20,000 mark for the first time since 2017, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 2.3 percent to 19,444.27 about 20 minutes into the trading day. The broad-based S&P 500 shed 2.0 percent to 2,351.02, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index lost 0.6 percent to 6,946.85. The Federal Reserve, which has been rolling out new measures to pump liquidity into the economy almost daily, on Thursday unveiled a new facility to provide dollars to emerging markets such as Brazil and Mexico that have seen an outflow of funds during the crisis. The US central bank also took steps to boost liquidity into money market mutual funds, investment tools for families, businesses and other entities in the real economy that are suddenly straining for cash. And the European Central Bank late Wednesday announced plans to spend 750 billion euros on "emergency" bond purchases. But weekly data on US initial jobless claims jumped 70,000 to 281,000, its highest level since September 2017, according to the Labor Department. Economists expected an increase, but that was far higher than the consensus forecast. The figures are expected to rise dramatically in the coming weeks as more employers cut jobs as social distancing measures to combat coronavirus freeze economic activity. jmb/hs
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