US close: Stocks close lower as tech sell-off resumes
Wall Street stocks closed lower on Thursday as tech stocks resumed their downward descent.
At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1.45% at 27,534.58, while the S&P 500 was 1.76% softer at 3,339.19 and the Nasdaq Composite saw out the session 1.99% weaker at 10,919.59.
The Dow closed 405.89 points lower on Thursday, reversing gains recorded in the previous session.
Thursday's main focus was the weekly jobless claims report from the Labor Department, which revealed initial US jobless claims were unchanged over the most recent week although secondary claims did edge higher.
Initial unemployment claims for the week ending on 5 September were at 884,000, flat week-on-week and higher than expectations for a reading of 850,000. On the other hand, the four-week moving average, which aims to smooth out the variations in the data from one week to the next, dipped by 21,750 to 970,750.
Market participants also had one eye focussed across the pond on a meeting of the European Central Bank, where the bank kept all its main policy settings unchanged, as expected.
Elsewhere on the macro front, wholesale prices in the US edged up a bit more than expected in August, bolstered by a sharp increase in those for services, especially trade. According to the Department of Labor, in seasonally adjusted terms, so-called final demand prices increased at a month-on-month pace of 0.3% (consensus: 0.2%).
Lastly, wholesale inventories in the US fell 0.3% month-on-month in July, more than initial estimates for a decline of 0.1%. Year-on-year, wholesale inventories fell 5.6%.
In corporate news, GameStop shares slumped after posting disappointing quarterly figures.
The US dollar, which hit its highest level in nearly a month in the previous session, was up 1.55% against the pound at the close.