On The Fly: Top stock stories for Thursday

Stocks opened little changed and remained that way for most of the session. The averages moved in a fairly narrow range before dipping late in the session as investors await the next catalyst to bring them off the sidelines. The catalyst may come next week when the earnings season kicks off in earnest. For now, investors appear content to sit on the sidelines. ECONOMIC EVENTS: In the U.S., initial jobless claims dropped 15,000 to 243,000 first-time claims in the week of October 7. The headline Producer Price Index climbed 0.4% in September, with the core up 0.4% as well. The advance in the overall PPI reading was in line with expectations, though the core reading was a bit hotter than forecast. COMPANY NEWS: JPMorgan (JPM) shares fell nearly 1% after the bank's third quarter profit topped expectations, boosted by strong deposit and loan growth that offset its weaker trading results. Meanwhile, shares of peer Citi (C) fell by over 3% even though the bank also posted better than expected revenue and earnings for the third quarter. Both stocks, and the bank group in general, have been strong recently heading into the earnings season... Meanwhile, Equifax (EFX) shares slipped 1.5% after Reuters reported that Equifax said it had taken one of its customer help web pages offline as its security looks into reports of another potential cyber attack at the company. Ars Technica had reported earlier that the company's website was hacked with a redirect to fake Adobe Flash updates... Separately, shares of AT&T (T) were down 6% after the company said in a regulatory filing last night that recent hurricanes as well as earthquakes in Mexico significantly impacted certain regions of its service area during the third quarter. The carrier said that damage to its network and other property, as well as revenue declines from waived charges, will decrease its reported third quarter consolidated revenues by nearly $90M and its reported pre-tax earnings by roughly $210M, or 2c per share. The company also reaffirmed its fiscal 2017 outlook for mid-single digit adjusted earnings growth. MAJOR MOVERS: Among the notable gainers was Glu Mobile (GLUU), which rose nearly 10% after Benchmark analyst Mike Hickey upgraded the stock to Buy and set a $6 target on the shares, saying he believes a turnaround is taking shape and that he is "cautiously optimistic" on the upcoming launch of a social platform from Taylor Swift. Also higher was Veeva (VEEV), which gained over 3.5% after holding an analyst and investor day yesterday. J.Jill (JILL) was among the noteworthy losers, seeing its stock price get cut roughly in half following yesterday's Q3 guidance reduction by the company. Also lower was MercadoLibre (MELI), which dropped 10% after Brazilian newspaper Valor Economico reported Amazon (AMZN) may make its long-awaited launch into the Brazilian e-commerce market within the week. INDEXES: The Dow fell 31.88, or 0.14%, to 22,841.01, the Nasdaq lost 12.04, or 0.18%, to 6,591.51, and the S&P 500 declined 4.31, or 0.17%, to 2,550.93.