US stocks open lower, Twitter falls after hacking episode

NEW YORK: Wall Street stocks fell early Thursday as Twitter retreated following a major hacking episode, and investors digested mixed earnings and economic data.

New US jobless claims for unemployment were nearly flat compared with last week at 1.3 million, a historically high level. Meanwhile, US retail sales continued to rise in June, but at a slower pace than in May.

About 15 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.4 percent at 26,776,97.

The broad-based S&P 500 shed 0.6 percent to 3,206.96, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index tumbled 1.1 percent to 10,438.98.

Shares have risen in three of the last four sessions, in part due to progress towards a coronavirus vaccine that has mitigated worries about spiking virus cases and hospitalizations in many states.

Shares of Twitter shed 2.6 percent following a massive hack in which high-profile users from Elon Musk to Joe Biden had their accounts hijacked by scammers.

The company is investigating the incident, in which the scammers sought to dupe people into sending hackers the virtual currency Bitcoin.

Morgan Stanley jumped 1.3 percent after reporting higher profits due to a strong trading performance, while Bank of America slid 3.9 percent as profits tumbled due to large reserves for potentially bad loans.