Investing.com - U.S. stocks opened lower on Thursday, after the release of a string of strong U.S. economic reports, while markets still awaited a report on manufacturing activity in the Philadelphia region.
During early U.S. trade, the Dow 30 slid 0.39%, the S&P 500 dropped 0.41%, while the NASDAQ Composite edged down 0.09%.
The U.S. Department of Labor said the number of individuals filing for initial jobless benefits in the week ending May 10 fell by 24,000 to 297,000 from the previous week’s revised total of 321,000. Analysts had expected jobless claims to fall by 1,000 to 320,000 last week.
A separate report showed that U.S. core consumer price inflation, which excludes food and energy, rose by 0.2% last month, more than the expected 0.1% uptick, after a 0.2% gain in March.
Consumer price inflation rose 0.3% in April, in line with expectations, after a 0.2% increase the previous month.
In addition, the Federal Reserve of New York said its manufacturing index climbed to a more than two-year high of 19.01 in May, from a reading of 1.29 in April. Analysts had expected the index to rise to 5.00 this month.
On the other hand, U.S. industrial production dropped 0.6% last month, confounding expectations for a 0.1% rise. March's figure was revised up to a 0.9% increase from a previously estimated 0.7% gain.
The New York Times (NYSE:NYT) tumbled 1% after the company said Jill Abramson, its executive editor, was unexpectedly leaving the position.
Wal-Mart Stores (NYSE:WMT) added to losses, down 2.46%, after reporting lower than expected first-quarter earnings, affected bu poor weather conditions.
Kohl's (NYSE:KSS) also posted earnings and revenue below analysts' estimates, sending shares in the department store chain down 1.68%.
On the upside, Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) surged 6.80% after the network equipment maker reported fourth-quarter revenue guidance that exceeded market estimates.
Elsewhere, Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) dropped 0.39% and Yahoo! Inc (NASDAQ:YHOO) slid 0.38% after a U.S. congressional investigation found on Wednesday that the $43 billion online-advertising network is jeopardizing consumer privacy and giving hackers an easy way to infect computers.
Other stocks likely to be in focus included Nordstrom (NYSE:JWN), JC Penney (NYSE:JCP) and Applied Materials (NASDAQ:AMAT), scheduled to report quarterly results later in the day.
Across the Atlantic, European stock markets were lower. The DJ Euro Stoxx 50 retreated 0.77%, France’s CAC 40 declined 0.66%, Germany's DAX slid 0.43%, while Britain's FTSE 100 shed 0.32%.
During the Asian trading session, Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 0.66%, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 0.75%.