WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Following the lackluster performance seen for much of Wednesday's session, stocks continued to experience choppy trading on Thursday. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 spent most of the day lingering near the unchanged line, although the narrower Dow showed a more notably move to the downside.
The major averages all finished the day in negative territory. While the Dow slumped 464.02 points or 0.9 percent to 53,885.10, the S&P 500 dipped 13.59 points or 0.2 percent to 7,709.96 and the Nasdaq edged down 15.09 points or 0.1 percent to 26,348.35.
The pullback by the Dow, which ended the previous session at a new record closing high, partly reflected a steep drop by shares of Salesforce (CRM).
Salesforce plunged by 3.2 percent after a report from CNBC said the cloud-based software company announced it will name former Oracle (ORCL) executive Miguel Milano operating chief.
Dow components Boeing (BA) and Honeywell (HON) also tumbled by 3.3 percent and 3 percent, respectively.
The choppy trading by the broader markets came as traders seemed reluctant to make significant moves ahead of the release of the Labor Department's closely watched monthly jobs report on Friday.
The report, which is expected to show employment jumped by 88,000 jobs in July after climbing by 57,000 jobs in June, could have a significant impact on the outlook for interest rates.
Ahead of the release of the monthly jobs report, the Labor Department released a report this morning showing a slight uptick in first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits in the week ended August 1st.
The Labor Department said initial jobless claims inched up to 199,000, an increase of 1,000 from the previous week's revised level of 198,000.
Economists had expected jobless claims to rise to 202,000 from the 197,000 originally reported for the previous week.
Sector News
Despite the lackluster performance by the broader markets, telecom stocks showed a substantial move back to the upside after falling sharply on Wednesday.
Reflecting the strength in the sector, the NYSE Arca North American Telecom Index spiked by 3.1 percent to a one-month closing high after tumbling by 2.5 percent in the previous session.
Oil service stocks also saw significant strength amid a sharp rebound by the price of crude oil, with the Philadelphia Oil Service Index surging by 3 percent.
On the other hand, the jump in oil prices contributed to considerable weakness among airline stocks, as reflected by the 3.1 percent slump by the NYSE Arca Airline Index.
Housing and brokerage stocks also showed notable moves to the downside after trending higher over the past few sessions.
Other Markets
In overseas trading, stock markets across the Asia-Pacific region turned in a mixed performance during trading on Thursday. Japan's Nikkei 225 Index slid by 0.9 percent, while China's Shanghai Composite Index climbed by 0.6 percent.
The major European markets also ended the day mixed. While the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index dipped by 0.2 percent, the German DAX Index crept up by 0.1 percent and the French CAC 40 Index rose by 0.4 percent.
In the bond market, treasuries pulled back sharply amid the rebound by the price of crude oil. As a result, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, jumped 5.3 basis points to 4.670 percent.
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