Dow Jones Industrial Average posts marginal gains on midday trade

• Dow Jones is trading near opening levels with Wall Street looking for direction in the last trading day of the quarter. 
• Real Estate and Energy shares are leading gains with the Tech sector lagging on portfolio adjustment moves.
• Investors' focus is on Friday's PCE Prices Index data and Fed Powell's speech.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) is trading less than 0.1% higher on Thursday with the main Wall Street indices looking for direction in the last trading day of the quarter.

The Dow Jones Index is trading nearly 0.01% higher at 39,766 on track to close the quarter with more than a 6% gain. Equity markets have been boosted by hopes of lower borrowing costs coupled with a strong economic momentum and investors' optimism about the potential of Artificial Intelligence. 

The benchmark S&P 500 is 0.1% higher, at 5,254, while the NASDAQ Composite trades practically at opening levels at 16,404.

Dow Jones news

The Energy and Real Estate sectors are leading gains in the Dow Jones on Thursday with advances of 0.65% and 0.56%, respectively, while the Communication Services, 0.42% down, and the Technology sector, 0.13% lower, are lagging behind.

Walt Disney (DIS) is the best performer, up 1.46% at $122.79, followed by Intel (INTC), which has risen 1.30% to $44.37. The big tech companies are leading losses, probably due to end-of-quarter portfolio adjustments,  which leaves Apple (AAPL) as the biggest loser, down 1.24% to $171.17, followed by Home Depot (HD) with a 0.6% decline to $383.58.

Earlier on Thursday, US Q4 Gross Domestic Product has been upwardly revised to a 0.6% growth from the 0.4% previously estimated. Beyond that, weekly Jobless Claims declined to 210,000 from 212,000 in the week of March 22, against market expectations of an incremental move to 215,000.

The focus now is on Friday's PCE Prices Index, which is expected to provide further clues on the Federal Reserve's monetary policy, and the Fed Chair speech due shortly afterward.
 

Dow Jones technical outlook

The Dow Jones Index remains bullish, standing comfortably above previous highs, and the 4-hour 50 Simple Moving Average (SMA), at 39,250. Below here, the next downside targets lie at the 39,000 level and the trendline support at 38,775. 

On the upside, resistances at the 39,900 previous high and the 40,000 psychological level are likely to offer significant pushback for bulls.

Dow Jones Industrial Average 4-Hour Chart