US stocks flat as rollercoaster 2020 comes to a close

• US stocks opened mostly flat on Thursday morning to finish off a rollercoaster year for markets.
• Initial jobless claims declined by 19,000 to 787,000, beating the consensus estimate of 828,800.
• Watch major indexes update live here.

US stocks opened relatively flat on Thursday morning to finish off a rollercoaster year for markets.

The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits for the first time dropped unexpectedly last week- the second straight week of declines. Initial jobless claims declined by 19,000 to 787,000. The consensus estimate was for jobless claims to rise to 828,800.

Meanwhile, continuing claims decreased to 5.22 million in the week that ended Dec.19. That's 150,000 less than the 5.37 million claims economists projected.

Here's where US indexes stood shortly after the 9:30 a.m. ET open on Thursday:

• S&P 500: 3,730.22, down 0.05%
• Dow Jones industrial average: 30,394.13, down 0.05% (15.43 points)
• Nasdaq composite: 12,872.23, up 0.02%

Read more:We spoke with Wall Street's 9 best-performing fund managers of 2020 to learn how they crushed the chaotic market - and compile the biggest bets they're making for 2021

Several cryptocurrency exchanges including Crypto.com, Coinbase, and OkCoin said this week they were suspending trading of the XRP token following the SEC's complaint against Ripple Labs, XRP's developer.

"XRP (the coin) is one foot in the grave," Phil Liu, Chief Legal Officer at Arca, told Business Insider on Wednesday. "Ripple, the company, may be insolvent by the end of 2021 if it can't raise money by selling XRP and its other products aren't profitable."

Oil prices were lower. West Texas Intermediate crude declined as much as 0.68%%, to $48.07 per barrel. Brent crude, oil's international benchmark, was down 0.72% to $51.26 per barrel.

Gold was up 0.43%, to $1,901.60 per ounce.

Read more:Market wizard Jeff Neumann started trading with $2,500 and grew it to $50 million. He shares 6 timeless rules that helped him reach millionaire status in his first year.