By Yasin Ebrahim
Investing.com – The Dow cut some of its losses on Thursday, but still closed lower as the sell-off in big tech continued amid a rocky week for stocks.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.47%, or 130 points. The S&P 500 was down 0.82% while the Nasdaq Composite slipped 1.27%.
Big tech continued its selloff from a day earlier, with Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) leading the decline, falling more than 3%. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) also fell.
Cloud company Snowflake (NYSE:SNOW), which more the doubled on its public market debut a day earlier, fell 10%.
Investor sentiment was also soured by economic data pointing to signs of a slowdown in the recovery at a time when hopes fade for further government stimulus.
Initial jobless claims came in at 860,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis in the week ended Sept. 12, the Department of Labor said Thursday. That was below the 893,000 reading from the prior week, but missing economists' forecast for a reading of 850,000.
"The downward trend in regular state initial jobless claims - that is, the headline number - has slowed to a crawl in the past couple of weeks," Pantheon Macroeconomics said in a note.
The Commerce Department, meanwhile, reported an unexpected 76,000 decline in housing starts as activity was hurt by Hurricane Laura and Tropical Storm Marco. While the Philly Fed headline sentiment index, a key gauge of manufacturing activity, fell to a reading of 15, in-line with estimates.
Financials continued to struggle, with Citigroup (NYSE:C), Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) and JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE:JPM) down more than 1% amid worries that the Fed's pledge to keep rates at near-zero until 2023 will continue to hamper net interest margin.
Materials sidestepped the broader market weakness as Mosaic (NYSE:MOS) surged more than 6% rebounding from weakness over the last few days after the company reported weaker revenue in August.
Industrials and energy also ended higher, with the latter getting a boost from rising oil prices after OPEC and its allies urged countries to step up compliance with the production accord.
In other news, Dave & Buster’s Entertainment (NASDAQ:PLAY) slumped 26% after the company warned it could be forced into bankruptcy if an agreement can’t be reached with its creditors, The Wall Street Journal reported.